Table 1. Detection of Bacillus anthracis among samples from 152 suspected anthrax cases evaluated with three stains and a subset of 102 cases evaluated with four stains.

PMB = polychrome methylene blue.

Technique	Number of positive samples
	Three stain comparison (n = 152)	Four stain comparison (n = 102)
qPCR	90 (59.2%)	69 (67.6%)
PMB	N/A	62 (60.8%)
Azure B	81 (53.3%)	62 (60.8%)
Giemsa	14 (9.2%)	11 (10.8%)
Rapi-Diff II	15 (9.9%)	12 (11.8%)