THE STUDY OF UTILITY OF CBNAAT IN DIAGNOSING PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS IN HIV POSITIVE PATIENTS IN NORTH KARNATAKA

BACKGROUND
\nTuberculosis being a global burden, there is a need for early detection and treatment of pulmonary TB. CBNAAT is used as rapid
\ndiagnostic test and it is a highly efficient. Twenty five percent of global annual TB incidents occur in India making it the highest
\nTuberculosis burdened country. We wanted to study the role of CBNAAT in early the diagnosis of tuberculosis/multi-drug
\nresistant tuberculosis in HIV seropositive subjects and compare the detection of M. tuberculosis in sputum by CBNAAT with
\nconventional sputum microscopy in pulmonary tuberculosis.
\nMETHODS
\nPatients who presented with persistent cough for more than two weeks, chest X ray suggestive of PTB were subjected to
\nsputum examination by routine microscopy and cartridge based nucleic acid amplification technique (CBNAAT).
\nRESULTS
\nCBNAAT had a sensitivity of 100%, specificity of 79.31%, PPV of 41.94% and NPV of 100% and diagnostic accuracy of 82%,
\nwhereas sputum microscopy showed only 41.94% sensitivity.
\nCONCLUSIONS
\nCBNAAT helps in early detection of tuberculosis, takes less than 2 hours, and is more sensitive in detecting tuberculosis in HIV
\nsero-positive cases compared to sputum microscopy and reduces the false negative rates. Drug resistance can concomitantly
\nbe identified