OBJECTIVE To determine the accuracy of Ziehl-Neelsen microscopy in the diagnosis of TB in setings of high HIV prevalence. DESIGN Cross-sectional descriptive study. SETTING Hospitals serving areas of high human immunodeficiency virus prevalence in western Kenya. The study was conducted between September 2007 and September 2009. RESULTS In total, 341/872(39.1%) of the TB suspects were posit...

Background.  The Xpert Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB)/rifampicin (RIF) is a fully automated diagnostic test that allows for the detection of MTB including its RIF resistance. Although the test is used for the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) in sputum samples worldwide, studies using fecal specimens are scarce. We therefore evaluated the efficacy of the Xpert MTB/RIF test for detection of MTB i...

INTRODUCTION Unsuccessful TB treatment outcome is a serious public health concern. It is compelling to identify, and deal with factors determining unsuccessful treatment outcome. Therefore, study was aimed to determine pattern of unsuccessful TB treatment outcome and associated factors in eastern Ethiopia. METHODS A case control study was used. Cases were records of TB patients registered as ...

background according to several studies, diabetes mellitus has been recognized as one of the main risk factors for pulmonary tuberculosis (ptb). objectives the main purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis (tb) in patients with diabetes. materials and methods this cross-sectional study was conducted from april 2010 to december 2011 in ali asg...

INTRODUCTION Smear-negative pulmonary TB (SNPT) represents 30-60% of all pulmonary TB cases. The mortality of these patients can reach 25% in populations with high prevalence of HIV infection, and 10-20% of TB transmission at the population level are attributable to SNPT cases. METHODS We conducted a retrospective study to evaluate epidemiological, clinical, and radiological characteristics o...

background : despite recent technologic improvements in identifying mycobacterium tuberculosis, we are still facing problems in rapid diagnosis of tuberculosis. the objective of this study is to determine the diagnostic value of a new rapid screening test (patho-tb™) for diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis. methods : between september 2006 to august 2007, 178 patients were enrolled in the study...

background: there is growing evidence that diabetes mellitus (dm) is an important risk factor for tuberculosis (tb). a significant number of dm patients have poor glycemic control. this study was carried out to find the impact of poor glycemic control on newly diagnosed smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients with type-2 diabetes mellitus in a tertiary care hospital. methods: in a hospit...

BACKGROUND The study was conducted at a high TB-HIV burden primary health community clinic in Cape Town, South Africa. We describe the management of children under five years of age in household contact with a smear and/or culture-positive adult TB case. METHODS This study was a record review of routinely-collected programme data. RESULTS A total of 1094 adult TB case folders were reviewed....

High Ag load in chronic viral infections has been associated with impairment of Ag-specific T cell responses; however, the relationship between Ag load in chronic Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and functional capacity of M. tuberculosis-specific T cells in humans is not clear. We compared M. tuberculosis-specific T cell-associated cytokine production and proliferative capacity in peripher...