[Up-to-date technologies of laboratory diagnosis of tuberculosis (efficiency of their use in clinical practice)].

To explore the diagnostic informative value of using new diagnostic methods for tuberculosis, the authors made a comparative study of the use of real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and enzyme immunoassay (EIA) to determine Mycobacterium tuberculosis antibodies in 96 patients diagnosed at the Saratov regional tuberculosis dispensary. Real-time PCR was found to be highly effective in improving the quality of diagnosis of tuberculosis and its differential diagnosis from another lung abnormality, by increasing the prognostic value of a positive result in PCR up to 95.2% versus 85.3% in EIA (p=0.0220) and that of a negative result to 77.7% versus 62.9%, respectively (p=0.0238).