TABLE 1.

Clinical and laboratory characteristics of patients whose M. tuberculosis cultures were suspected to be false positive and patients with isolates matching those of another patient whose specimen was processed on the same day

Patient	Isolate no.	Status of specimen	Smear result	No. of M. tuberculosis colonies on Ogawa	Clinical signs and symptoms	Panel decision	Final diagnosis
1	8a	Follow-up (mo 1)	Negative	0a	40-Yr-old man with chest pain, wt loss, adynamia, and fever; chest radiograph showed two right lung zones involved	TB	TB
2	8	Initial	Negative	2	27-Yr-old woman with productive cough for 30 days, household contact; chest radiograph was normal	TB	TB
3	10	Follow-up (yr 4)	3+ positive	20	39-Yr-old woman with multi-resistant TB, nonproductive cough; chest radiograph suggested active disease	TB	TB
4	10a	Initial	Negative	10	79-Yr-old woman, household contact, no clinical signs of active TB disease	Cross-contamination	Not TB

^aPositive in Bactec 12B.