The low yield of routine radiographic screening of tuberculin-positive hospital employees.

On the basis of limited benefit in relation to cost, mass radiographic screening for tuberculosis was challenged and abandoned in the 1970s. In the 1980s the value of such periodic screening of hospital employees with known positive tuberculin reactions was queried on the same grounds but without comparable data. We report here the results of 11 years of radiographic screening of tuberculin-positive employees of a university hospital. Although 3900 chest films were obtained at considerable cost, only one proved and six suspect cases of tuberculosis were detected, all of which were symptomatic. Even in the absence of symptoms all could have been identified by other screening criteria, five on the basis of recent tuberculin conversion and two as tuberculin-positive new employees. These data support the recent statement that periodic chest roentgenograms of hospital employees with known positive reactions to tuberculin skin testing are not justified.