Badal-Faesen Sharlaa, Firnhaber Cynthia, Kendall Michelle A, Wu Xingye, Grinsztejn Beatriz, Escada Rodrigo Otavio da Silva, Fernandez Michel, Hogg Evelyn, Sanne Ian, Johnson Pamela, Alland David, Mazurek Gerald H, Benator Debra A, Luetkemeyer Anne F
Clinical HIV Research Unit, Department of Internal Medicine, School of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2092, South Africa.
Center for Biostatistics in AIDS Research, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Boston, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
J Clin Med. 2017 Aug 7;6(8):78. doi: 10.3390/jcm6080078.
As a strategy to improve the sensitivity of nucleic acid-based testing in acid-fast bacilli (AFB) negative samples, larger volumes of sputum (5-10 mL) were tested with Xpert MTB/RIF from 176 individuals with smear-negative sputum undergoing tuberculosis evaluation. Despite larger volumes, this strategy had a suboptimal sensitivity of 50% (4/8).