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. 1996 May;3(3):337–341. doi: 10.1128/cdli.3.3.337-341.1996

Detection of pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis patients with the 38-kilodalton antigen from Mycobacterium tuberculosis in a rapid membrane-based assay.

A T Zhou 1, W L Ma 1, P Y Zhang 1, R A Cole 1
PMCID: PMC170343  PMID: 8705680

Abstract

A rapid membrane-based serologic assay using the 38-kDa antigen from Mycobacterium tuberculosis for the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) was evaluated with 201 patients with pulmonary TB, 67 patients with extrapulmonary TB, 79 Mycobacterium bovis BCG-vaccinated healthy controls, and 77 non-TB respiratory patients. The overall sensitivities, specificities, and positive and negative predictive values were, respectively, 92, 92, 84, and 96% for sputum-positive TB patients; 70, 92, 87, and 79% for sputum-negative TB patients; and 76, 92, 80, and 90% for extrapulmonary-TB patients. Only 2% (1 of 44) of the healthy control BCG-vaccinated subjects gave weak positive signals in the assay, indicating that this rapid serological assay is a valuable aid in clinical diagnosis for both pulmonary and extrapulmonary TB.

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Selected References

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