Smear-Negative Pulmonary TuberculosisTayfun Çalışkan1, Hatice Kaya21Clinic of Chest Diseases, Gülhane Military Medical Academy Haydarpaşa Training Hospital, İstanbul 2Clinic of Chest Diseases, Gülhane Military Medical Academy, Ankara
Tuberculosis (TB) is the second leading cause of death from an infectious disease worldwide, after the human immunodeficiency virus. There are almost 2.5 million new smear-positive pulmonary TB cases and 1.9 million new smear-negative pulmonary TB cases in 2013 according to the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Tuberculosis Report 2013. Smear negativity in pulmonary TB is a common clinical problem. Clinicians have difficulty in diagnosing smear-negative pulmonary TB without bacteriological confirmation. It is very important to decide whether or not to treat a patient with smear negative PTB when the culture results are pending. New diagnostic methods are required for the diagnosis of smear-negative pulmonary TB. In addition to the development of new microbiological and serological diagnostic tests, clinical prediction scoring systems and algorithms including clinical and radiological findings of smear-negative pulmonary TB patients in our country, should be established to facilitate the diagnosis of smear-negative pulmonary TB. Keywords: Pulmonary, smear negative tuberculosis, tuberculosis
Tayfun Çalışkan, Hatice Kaya. Smear-Negative Pulmonary Tuberculosis. Eurasian J Pulmonol. 2015; 17(2): 75-79
Corresponding Author: Tayfun Çalışkan, Türkiye |
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