Comparative study between bactec magit 960 and fastplaque tb, for detection of mycobactreium tuberculosis complex in sputum specimens

ABSTRACT

Rapid diagnosis of tuberculosis is essential to initiate timely and appropriate treatment to curb the spread of this potentially life threatening disease, we have evaluated the clinical utility of phage assay, using FASTPlaque TB kit, in comparison to the BACTEC MGIT 960 system with respect to Z-N stain for the recovery, time of detection and contamination rate of MBTC from sputum specimens..Our data revealed the sensitivity of the phage test with respect to AFB smear positivity -was 87.6% and specificity was WO %.The positive predictive value was 100% and negative predictive value was 86.7 %. Whereas the sensitivity and specificity of phage assay with respect to growth on BACTEC MGIT media were 82.5% and 100% respectively. While, the positive predictive value and negative predictive value were 100% and 80.6 % respectively