Simple sputum test for confirmation of childhood tu...( from the upper gastrointestinal tract ...),Health

from the upper gastrointestinal tract induces sputum-- with conventional sputum induction for the diagnosis of tuberculosis in 228 HIV-infected patients. These patients were under investigation for tuberculosis and were either unable to produce an adequate specimen or they had a previous negative specimen. 52 HIV-positive controls had the same procedure. The use of the string test followed by sputum induction detected more cases of tuberculosis on culture of the specimens than did sputum induction alone, including the diagnosis of one patient with tuberculosis in a group of asymptomatic controls.

Alwyn Mwinga (Global AIDS Program, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Lusaka, Zambia) in an accompanying commentary (p 97) welcomes the advances of these two studies, but cautions that more straightforward diagnostic procedures are needed in resource-poor settings. She states: "The development of a simple affordable dipstick test in whole blood that can detect tuberculosis infection in the HIV-infected infant and child will greatly improve the ability of health-care staff to provide appropriate treatment and avoid the inappropriate use of antibiotics. This situation is not a pipe dream when we consider the available resources for tuberculosis and HIV research and the current efforts in developing new diagnostics for tuberculosis. The Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), an independent not-for-profit foundation launched in 2003 by the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Disease with funding from the Gates Foundation, has chosen tuberculosis as its first target. Several innovative and rapid tests are being developed with the support of FIND. The development of improved tools for the diagnosis of tuberculosis is one of the research goals of the National Institutes of Health in the USA. Someone in the world is infected with the tuberculosis bacillus every second, and someone dies from tuberculosis every 15 seconds, one out of e
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Contact: Joe Santangelo
j.santangelo@elsevier.com
1-212-633-3810
Lancet
6-Jan-2005

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