ABSTRACT
Objective To evaluate the effect of probe melting curve analysis and gene chips on detecting drug resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis against isoniazid and rifampicin. Methods Drug resistance was detected by gene chip and probe melting curve analysis in 46 cases of patients with sputum smear positive specimens, with L-J culture as the gold standard. Results In all the 46 cases, the detection of drug resistance genes against isoniazid was performed by probe melting curve analysis and gene chips, achieving the coincidences of 91.3% and 80.43% with those by L-J culture, respectively. The detection of drug resistance genes in 38 cases administered with rifampicin was conducted as well by the two techniques, achieving the coincidences of 84%and 89.4% with those by L-J culture. There were no significant differences between the two methods (P > 0.05). Conclusion The gene chip direct detection and probe melting curve analysis are of high value in diagnosis of tuberculosis, and they can be regarded as a diagnosis method of choice for tuberculosis. Both have the priorities of timesaving, high sensitivity and specificity.