Journal of Tuberculosis and Therapeutics
Open Access

Our Group organises 3000+ Global Conferenceseries Events every year across USA, Europe & Asia with support from 1000 more scientific Societies and Publishes 700+ Open Access Journals which contains over 50000 eminent personalities, reputed scientists as editorial board members.

Open Access Journals gaining more Readers and Citations
700 Journals and 15,000,000 Readers Each Journal is getting 25,000+ Readers

This Readership is 10 times more when compared to other Subscription Journals (Source: Google Analytics)
  • Research Article   
  • J Tuberc Ther 2018, Vol 3(1): 111

Does the Third Sputum Exam has an Added Value in the Diagnosis of Pulmonary Tuberculosis?

Hagos Andom Tuumzghi1*, Araia Berhane2 and Medhanie Asrat3
1Department of TB Control, Central Region, Ministry of Health, , Asmara, Eritrea
2Director of National Communicable Diseases Control Division, Ministry of Health, , Asmara, Eritrea
3National Statistics Office, , Asmara, Eritrea
*Corresponding Author : Hagos Andom Tuumzghi, Department of TB Control, Central Region, Ministry of Health, Asmara, Eritrea, Tel: +2917508486, Fax: 122129, Email: hagos.tuum@gmail.com

Received Date: Dec 11, 2017 / Accepted Date: Dec 28, 2017 / Published Date: Jan 04, 2018

Abstract

Introduction: Current practice of examining three sputum for the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) has tended to overburden the already scarce human resources in all-purpose laboratories, and to increase the turn-around- time for patients seeking treatment. Therefore, assessing the added value of the third sputum in the diagnosis of PTB in resource-limited country with less functional External Quality Assurance (EQA) system is critical.
Materials and methods: Data on patients diagnosed with smear-positive PTB during 2012-2016 was collected retrospectively from laboratory register of nine hospitals in Eritrea. The data was extracted and analyzed for incremental yield of three sputum samples.
Results: Data from 2,484 microscopically confirmed acid-fast bacilli (AFB) smear positive PTB patients were reviewed. AFB was detected in the first sputum in 87.5% of patients, and 99.1% for the combined first and second sputum specimens. The incremental yield of the third sputum specimen as a diagnostic value was only 0.9%. No significant variation was detected by region, residence, gender or HIV.
Conclusion: The added value of the third sputum is so minimal that its omission will reduce patient visits, workload and cost for patients and health services. Therefore, even countries like Eritrea, with limited EQA, should consider limiting the number of sputum examinations to improve quality.

Keywords: Acid-fast bacilli; Incremental yield; Sputum smear microscopy; Tuberculosis

Citation: Tuumzghi HA, Berhane A, Asrat M (2018) Does the Third Sputum Exam has an Added Value in the Diagnosis of Pulmonary Tuberculosis? J Tuberc Ther 3: 111.

Copyright: © 2018 Tuumzghi HA, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Top