Introduction:

Tuberculosis (TB) has existed for millennia and remains a major global health problem . GeneXpert assay has constituted a major breakthrough for tuberculosis diagnostics, providing a rapid, accurate way of identifying TB patients

AIM:

To compare the diagnostic yeild of Genexpert with AFB stain in suspected cases of pulmonary and extrapulmonary cases of TB

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

We retrospectively reviewed the respiratory samples of suspected pulmonary tuberculosis (Bronchoalveolar lavage and Sputum) and extrapulmonary samples of 187 patients from June 2017 to June 2018 for ZN stain and GeneXpert.

RESULTS:

Of the total 187 cases studied, 138 samples were Pulmonary and 49 were Extrapulmonary. A total of 68 cases were diagnosed with Pulmonary Tuberculosis. Among pulmonary samples, an additional 5 samples in BAL and 18 in sputum were detected using genexpert. Among 49 extrapulmonary specimens, 28 were biopsy specimens and 21 were fluid specimens. Amidst biopsy and fluid specimens, 18 samples were gene xpert positive,but only 4 was positive with AFB stain.

DISCUSSION

According to our study, Gene Xpert has a higher yield than AFB smear in respiratory and extrapulmonary specimens. The result of this study shows that GeneXpert can increase more than four times the rapid diagnosis of extrapulmonary tuberculosis compared to AFB stain.

CONCLUSION

Gene Xpert could replace smear microscopy as the initial diagnosis of tuberculosis due to its high detection rate in pulmonary and extrapulmonary specimens and also helps detecting unsuspected cases of Primary MDR TB.