The study was a cross sectional and blind assessment on 50 suspected cases of TB among HIV positive and HIV negative patients using FM method against Zeihl Neelsen (ZN) stainingmethod. Culture results were considered as gold standard.
Results:
Of the total 50 specimens examined by ZN, FM and culturemethod 32%, 40% and 38% were found positive by ZN, FM and culture respectively. FM was sensitive to ZN on several aspects. The difference in their case detection rates were statistically significant (2 = 35.3, p<0.001). In detecting overall patients for TB, FM method showed sensitivity of 90.0% (95% CI 68.3-98.5) over ZN method 75.0% (95% CI 50.9-91.3) with a kappa value of 0.83 (p≤0.05). FM method showed excellent sensitivity, sensitivity, PPV and NPV all with 100% (95% CI 48.0-100) among HIV-TB patients and an excellent kappa value of 1 (p≤0.05)