Tuberculosis Screening in Patients Starting Antiretroviral Therapy in Sub-Saharan Africa: Stretching Diagnostics to the Limits

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
TO THE EDITOR—We read with interest the article by Bassett et al [1] about intensive screening for pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)–infected patients initiating antiretroviral treatment (ART) at an outpatient service in Durban, South Africa. All patients without a pre-existing TB diagnosis (median CD4 cell count, 100 cells/μL) were screened using sputum culture, and 19% were confirmed to have pulmonary TB. Only 52% of patients with TB reported cough, and the sensitivity of sputum smear microscopy was only 9%. The authors concluded that, in settings with high TB prevalence, screening using sputum culture should be routine in this patient population. However, infrastructure to do this is currently lacking in many countries.

This publication has 10 references indexed in Scilit: