Many laboratory workers prefer the rhodamine-auramine method of staining acid-fast bacilli (AFB) in primary specimen smears rather than carbol fuchsin stains because the stain is more readily interpreted and yields greater sensitivity. The increasing incidence of AFB infections serves as an impetus to optimize the rhodamine-auramine stain. A total of 782 primary smears were evaluated blindly by...

Introduction and Aim: Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major public health concern with its high incidence mortality. In developing countries, smear microscopy continues to be the primary diagnostic tool for diagnosis of TB. Sputum samples processing under resource-limited settings could hazardous, which urges safe efficient techniques. This study aimed evaluate efficacy two different pot methods: P...

Hagemann (Muench. Med. Wochschr. 85:1066, 1938) discovered that tubercle bacilli have selective affinity for phenol-auramine stain. Since then, several investigators (Richards, Kline, and Leach, Am. Rev. Tuberc. 4:255, 1941; Bogen, Am. Rev. Tuberc. 4:267, 1941; Lempert, Lancet 2:818, 1944; Gray, Am. Rev. Tuberc. 68:82, 1953; Kuper and May, J. Pathol. Bacteriol. 79:59, 1960) have advocated its u...

AIMS To evaluate a safe sputum processing method for detection of tuberculosis in developing countries. METHODS A sample processing method was developed in which acid fast bacilli were killed with 1% sodium hypochlorite and concentrated by flotation on a layer of xylene before staining by the Ziehl Neelsen or auramine O methods. RESULTS Best results were obtained by auramine O staining afte...

Our objective was to evaluate the feasibility of a molecular assay based on a real-time PCR technique, carried out with a LightCycler instrument (Roche Biochemicals), to identify Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacilli and to detect rifampin and isoniazid resistance in DNA extracts from sputum samples. We studied three genes: rpoB, which is associated with rifampin resistance, and katG and inhA, whi...

A dual-staining procedure for acid-fast bacilli was found to have poor correlation with the Ziehl-Neelsen and auramine-rhodamine staining techniques.

Objective. To determine the Cryptosporidium spp. infection frequency by using Ziehl-Neelsen and Auramine stains on samples obtained from diarrheic calves from milking farms of the Valdivia province. To compare both diagnostic tests and to determine the geospatial distribution of the infections caused by this protozoan. Materials and methods. 221 fecal samples of diarrheic calves of 24 milking f...

AIMS Despite its long history, the acid fast smear remains unstandardised. Technical variations in both the preparation of clinical material and subsequent staining mean that smear sensitivity relative to culture may vary from 50% to over 80%. This study assessed the sensitivity of acid fast microscopy at each of five stages of sample preparation and by both commonly used staining methods. ME...

The goal of this study was to evaluate the effect of the specimen-processing method that uses the detergent C18-carboxypropylbetaine (CB-18) on the sensitivity of acid-fast bacillus (AFB) staining. Vietnamese immigrants with abnormal chest radiographs provided up to three sputum specimens, which were examined for acid-fast bacilli by use of direct auramine and Ziehl-Neelsen staining. The remain...