New research and development strategy for tuberculosis diagnostics urgently needed

Authors: Hans-Georg Batz, Martina Casenghi, Graham S Cooke, Sally Hargreaves, Steven D Reid, Javid Syed

Excerpt:

"Mark Nicol and colleagues provide the first assessment of Xpert MTB/RIF for diagnosis of paediatric pulmonary tuberculosis; they report high specifi city for the test. Xpert MTB/RIF had a higher detection rate than did smear microscopy; however, sensitivity for paediatric samples was lower than for adults. Furthermore, the test was less sensitive than was culture for diagnosis of childhood tuberculosis, although it provided results faster (1 day vs 12 days). Although Xpert MTB/RIF is a major advance for diagnosis of tuberculosis the results of this study show that some diagnostic challenges and limitations remain."