Saeed Khan, Zia Ullah, Lala Ruhk, Muhammad Haroon, Afsheen Bashir, Halima Sadia, Maryum Ashfaq.
Evaluating the diagnostic accuracy of Gene Xpert MTB/RIF in Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Kohat Division.
Pak J Chest Med Jan ;25(4):181-5.

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is considered to be one of the most prominent reasons for death globally caused by a single microorganism. However with the advancement in the field of human health, researchers have mostly focused on the strategies to eradicate the TB but it has not been achieved yet because of the major gaps in terms of resource-constrained settings and is case of huge burden of the disease. This study was conducted with the objective to find out the importance and diagnostic accuracy of Gene Xpert MTB/RIF in Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Kohat Division. Methodology: This is an observational study conducted to evaluate suspected MDR-TB patients from Kohat Division. All suspected cases were referred to Xpert Lab and then their sputum were sent to Provincial Referencing Laboratory (PRL lab) Hayatabad Peshawar for Culture and Drug Susceptible TB testing. Data analysis was done in SPSS 21 and MS Excel 2013 version. Results: A total of 925 patients were included in the study consecutively. In the total patient population, 709 (76.6%) were having a mean age from 15-44 years. Out of 925 patients, 408 (44.1%) were males and 517 (55.1%) were females. The overall sensitivity of Xpert MTB/RIF in detecting culture-positive pulmonary TB was 56.8% (519/925) and culture Negative Pulmonary TB was 43.8% (406/925). Conclusion: The large-scale demonstration provides a robust data on the potential for increased case finding of TB and DR-TB through routine use of a high sensitivity molecular diagnostic test for TB and DR-TB (Xpert MTB/RIF) in public sector medical services. Our observations may be useful in guiding the decisions on the scale-up of Xpert MTB/RIF in high-burden settings.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com