Title: Role of Bronchoscopy in Diagnosing Sputum Negative Pulmonary Tuberculosis: A Retrospective Study
Authors: Dr Girija Nair, Dr Shahid Patel, Dr Vanya Prasad
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/jmscr/v8i11.92
Abstract
Objective: To evaluate the significance of bronchoscopy in detecting additional cases of pulmonary tuberculosis which are not detected by AFB smear microscopy or by GeneXpert of sputum sample.
Method: With the Pulmonary Department of tertiary healthcare centre, we retrospectively reviewed records of 127 patients from April 2019 to December 2019 who underwent three diagnostic tests for pulmonary tuberculosis- AFB smear microscopy, GeneXpert of sputum and GeneXpert of bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) sample obtained by bronchoscopy. The results of the BAL sample were compared with the other two to check if it detected more cases of tuberculosis.
Result: The result of GeneXpert of BAL sample obtained after bronchoscopy showed a concordance of 82.68% with the result of AFB sputum smear and a concordance of 81.10% with the result of GeneXpert of sputum. It detected an additional 17.32% of pulmonary tuberculosis cases.
Conclusion: Incorporating bronchoscopy in diagnosing pulmonary tuberculosis led to a detection of an additional 17.32% of cases.
Keywords: bronchoscopy, bronchoalveolar lavage, pulmonary tuberculosis.
