LOOP MEDIATED ISOTHERMAL AMPLIFICATION FOR THE RAPID DIAGNOSIS OF PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS

Control of tuberculosis is often challenged by diagnostic methods which are time consuming, often less sensitive, expensive and inaccessible to most patients especially in the developing countries. The characteristics of loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) method make it a promising platform for the molecular detection of tuberculosis in developing countries. We wanted to evaluate the loop mediated isothermal amplification method for the rapid diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) in low resource settings.