BACKGROUND Evaluation of patients with suspected tuberculosis and negative sputum smears for acid-fast bacilli (AFB) is challenging, especially in high human immunodeficiency virus coinfection settings where sputum smears have lower sensitivity for detecting AFB. METHODS We examined the utility of chest radiographs for detecting smear-negative pulmonary tuberculosis. Three hundred sixty sputu...

OBJECTIVE A group of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (PT) who received and correctly completed antituberculous therapy were studied to determine the incidence and significance of positive acid-fast bacilli (AFB) in sputum smears at the end of this treatment. DESIGN Retrospective chart review of persons with bacteriologically proved PT. PATIENTS Of 1,052 patients diagnosed as having PT ...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the sensitivity of acid-fast sputum smears in the diagnosis of pulmonary Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). DESIGN Retrospective chart and radiographic film review. SETTING Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New York City. PATIENTS All patients with positive sputum cultures for MTB during 1989 to 1991, including 100 with HIV, and 76 without HIV infection...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Improper practices of making direct smears of sputum for detection of acid-fast bacilli (AFB) and of disposing sputum cups are hazardous. The present study was undertaken with the objective to stain sputum samples in their containers by 'phenol (10%) ammonium sulphate (4%) basic fuchsin (2%) solution' and to decolourize and counterstain their smears for detection of AFB-...

BACKGROUND Clinical suspects of pulmonary tuberculosis in which the sputum smears are negative for acid fast bacilli represent a diagnostic challenge in resource constrained settings. Our objective was to validate an existing clinical-radiographic score that assessed the probability of smear-negative pulmonary tuberculosis (SNPT) in high incidence settings in Peru. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDI...

Background. Health care facilities face substantial challenges in diagnosis and infection prevention for patients suspected to have infectious tuberculosis (TB). LAC + USC Medical Center is a large, urban safety-net facility with 105 confirmed TB cases reported in 2013, >1% of all reported cases in the United States. Methods. We reviewed all inpatient admissions from January 2010 to September 2...

In many clinical laboratories, bacteria seen in Gram-stained sputum smears are reported semiquantitatively, using a three- or four-category scale consisting of ratings such as numerous, moderate, rare, and none seen. The consistency with which these categories are assigned was evaluated by repeatedly presenting coded smears to seven experienced microbiology technologists. Technologists rated th...

The confirming diagnosis for tuberculosis as recommended by World Health Organization is by detecting the Acid Fast Bacilli bacteriologically in the respiratory specimens. In certain cases, where there is a strong clinical and radiological suspicion for tuberculosis and with repeated sputum samples showing negativity for AFB, bronchoscopic study with bronchial washings for the detection of AFB ...

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major health problem worldwide. The bacteriological diagnosis of TB is confirmed by sputum smear, which shows positive result. Sputum culture conversion at two months therapy has higher possibility completing therapy; however, this method time-consuming and expensive. This study aimed to analyze the initial smear in intensive phase as prognostic determinant appropria...

The EasyNAT assay was evaluated for the detection of tuberculosis in sputum smears from presumptive pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) patients in an African high-TB and high-HIV setting. The sensitivity of the EasyNAT assay was 66.7%, and the specificity and positive predictive value were 100% for the culture-positive patients. The sensitivity was only 10% in the smear-negative and culture-positive p...