ArticlePublic health action2025
Clinical diagnosis of TB: lessons on misdiagnosis and overdiagnosis.
Article in Public health action, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Improved detection of isoniazid-heteroresistantMicrobiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Clinical diagnosis of TB: further examples of under- and over-diagnosis.Public health action · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Clinically diagnosed TB patients (n = 335) at two facilities in Lusaka, Zambia were re-evaluated within two weeks of diagnosis. This re-evaluation included sputum Xpert Ultra testing and expert reader interpretation of the chest x-rays (CXRs) used for initial diagnosis. Repeat Xpert Ultra detected TB in just 2.6% (n=6). Of the remaining patients (n=222), expert CXR re-interpretation classified 18.0% as normal; 36.0% as abnormal, consistent with TB; and 46.0% as abnormal, not consistent with TB. These findings suggest that clinical TB is frequently over diagnosed in those without detectable CXR abnormalities and misdiagnosed in those with abnormal CXRs: these abnormalities are likely due to other respiratory conditions. Such misdiagnosis leads to unnecessary treatment, failure to treat the true underlying condition and incorrect estimates of TB burden.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.