Authors: Ismail, N.A.¹; Baba, K.²; Pombo, D.¹; Hoosen, A.A.³

Source: The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, Volume 13, Number 8, August 2009 , pp. 1045-1047(3)

Publisher: International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease

Abstract:

In settings of high human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevalence, culture confirmation, preferably by liquid culture, is required for the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB). However, long delays with phenotypic identification offsets the short turnaround time of liquid cultures. We report here the advantages of using a commercial immunochromatographic (ICT) assay targeting the Mycobacterium tuberculosis protein 64 (MPT-64) Ag and compare it with the Accuprobe^® MTB complex molecular probe assay. The performance of the ICT kit was excellent, with sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of respectively 97%, 100%, 100%, and 92%. The kit requires a 15-min assay time, is easy to perform and is a good method for simplifying the diagnosis of TB.

Keywords: Mycobacterium tuberculosis; MPT-64 antigen; immunochromatographic assay

Document Type: Short communication

Affiliations: 1: Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Pretoria and the Microbiology Diagnostic Laboratory, Tshwane Academic Division, National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS), Pretoria, South Africa 2: Department of Microbiology, Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital/Walter Sisulu University and the National Health Laboratory Service, Pretoria, South Africa 3: Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Pretoria and the Microbiology Diagnostic Laboratory, Tshwane Academic Division, National Health Laboratory Service, Pretoria (NHLS), South Africa

Publication date: 2009-08-01

More about this publication?

• The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease publishes articles on all aspects of lung health, including public health-related issues such as training programmes, cost-benefit analysis, legislation, epidemiology, intervention studies and health systems research. The IJTLD is dedicated to the continuing education of physicians and health personnel and the dissemination of information on tuberculosis and lung health world-wide.

  Certain IJTLD articles are selected for translation into French, Spanish, Chinese or Russian. They are available on the Union website

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