RESULTS
A total of 800 clinically TB suspects were initially included in the
study. 84 (10.5%) samples of clinically TB suspects were discarded due
to technical shortcomings (insufficient in quantity, errors in
diagnostic modalities, culture contamination). 716 clinically TB
suspects samples were included in the final analysis of the study. All
the samples were subjected to ZN staining, GeneXpert assay and culture
inoculation.
The mean age ± SD of the clinically TB suspects was 43.6 ± 20.9, of
which 48.7% (N = 349) were males and 51.3% (N = 367) were females.
Characteristics of study participants are presented in table 1 which
also shows the comparison of TB positive and TB negative individuals.
[Table 1 about here]
Out of total 716 samples, 51.4% (N = 368) were GeneXpert negative and
48.6% (N = 348) were GeneXpert positive. 47.3% (N = 339) were screened
positive and 52.7% (N = 377) as negative by MGIT culture method.
Whereas, 57.4% (N = 411) were detected as negative by ZN staining and
42.6% (N = 305) as positive (Table 2).
[Table 2 about here]
Results of both GeneXpert and ZN staining were compared with MGIT
culture. MGIT culture results were used as reference. In comparative
analysis, the sensitivity and specificity of GeneXpert with 95%
confidence interval (CI) was comparatively higher (99.7%, CI 0.98 -
0.99) and (97.3%, CI 0.95 - 0.98) respectively than that of ZN staining
(85.5%, CI 0.81 - 0.89) and (96.0%, CI 0.93 - 0.97) respectively
(Table 3).
[Table 3 about here]