ReviewDiagnostics (Basel, Switzerland)2018
Challenges and Progress with Diagnosing Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.
Review in Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland), 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 74 citations in OpenAlex.
- Diagnostic Accuracy of Breath Tests to Detect Pulmonary Tuberculosis: A Systematic Review.Lung · 2025Pooled it
- Computer-Aided Analysis of Photographed Chest X-Ray Films Performs Well Compared With Trained Radiologists.Mayo Clinic proceedings. Digital health · 2026Article
- Preferences for tongue swab versus sputum collection for TB testing: a multi-country survey.The international journal of tuberculosis and lung disease : the official journal of the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease · 2026Article
- Contamination rates in serially sampled sputum specimens obtained during tuberculosis treatment to capture culture conversion.Microbiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Uncovering the burden of tuberculosis in Algeria: a retrospective analysis from 2019 to 2024.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2025Article
- Ending the TB epidemic - what can we learn from the HIV epidemic?IJTLD open · 2025Article
- Healthcare providers' knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions from using targeted sequencing to diagnose and manage drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) in Eswatini.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Review
- Comparison of microscopic and xpert MTB diagnoses of presumptive mycobacteria tuberculosis infection: retrospective analysis of routine diagnosis at Cape Coast Teaching Hospital.BMC infectious diseases · 2024Article
- Evolution of Laboratory Diagnosis of Tuberculosis.Clinics and practice · 2024Review
- Cutoff estimation and construction of their confidence intervals for continuous biomarkers under ternary umbrella and tree stochastic ordering settings.Statistics in medicine · 2024Article
- No extraction? No problem. Direct to PCR processing of tongue swabs for diagnosis of tuberculosis disease as an alternative to sputum collection.Microbiology spectrum · 2024Article
- Shared challenges to the control of complex intracellular neglected pathogens.Frontiers in public health · 2024Review
- Integrating pathogen- and host-derived blood biomarkers for enhanced tuberculosis diagnosis: a comprehensive review.Frontiers in immunology · 2024Review
- Article
- Predictive capabilities of baseline radiological findings for early and late disease outcomes within sensitive and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis cases.European journal of radiology open · 2023Article
- Performance of Tuberculosis Molecular Bacterial Load Assay Compared to Alere TB-LAM in Urine of Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients with HIV Co-Infections.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Recurrence Rate of Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Patients Treated with the Standard 6-Month Regimen: Findings and Implications from a Prospective Observational Multicenter Study.Tropical medicine and infectious disease · 2023Article
- A Comparative Study on Visual Detection ofDiagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Innovative laboratory methods for improved tuberculosis diagnosis and drug-susceptibility testing.Frontiers in tuberculosis · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Case finding and the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) are key activities to reach the World Health Organization's End TB targets by 2030. This paper focuses on the diagnosis of pulmonary TB (PTB) in low- and middle-income countries. Sputum smear microscopy, despite its many limitations, remains the primary diagnostic tool in peripheral health facilities; however, this is being replaced by molecular diagnostic techniques, particularly Xpert MTB/RIF, which allows a bacteriologically confirmed diagnosis of TB along with information about whether or not the organism is resistant to rifampicin within two hours. Other useful diagnostic tools at peripheral facilities include chest radiography, urine lipoarabinomannan (TB-LAM) in HIV-infected patients with advanced immunodeficiency, and the loop-mediated isothermal amplification (TB-LAMP) test which may be superior to smear microscopy. National Reference Laboratories work at a higher level, largely performing culture and phenotypic drug susceptibility testing which is complemented by genotypic methods such as line probe assays for detecting resistance to isoniazid, rifampicin, and second-line drugs. Tuberculin skin testing, interferon gamma release assays, and commercial serological tests are not recommended for the diagnosis of active TB. Linking diagnosis to treatment and care is often poor, and this aspect of TB management needs far more attention than it currently receives.
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Registered trials
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