Spozmai Tareen, Abdul Rauf, Nabeela Tariq, Muhammad Ali Khan, Muhammad Shafee, Palwasha Tareen, Amin Fahim.
Comparison between fluorescent microscopy and duplex PCR to detect mycobacterium bovis and mycobacterium tuberculosis in tuberculosis suspected patients.
J Postgrad Med Inst Jan ;35(4):230-5.

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the gold-standard fluorescent microscopy as a diagnostic tech­nique with the PCR test, an advance molecular technique. Methodology: A total of 200 suspected pulmonary and extra-pulmonary samples were taken and stored for analysis in Quetta city. Samples were tested for Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium bovis by both the gold standard fluorescent microscopy (auramine-O FM) and molecular technique duplex PCR. By duplex PCR, Mycobacterium tuberculosis’s 245bp sequence and Mycobacterium bovis’s 500bp sequence was detected by using specific primers. Results: Among 200 pulmonary and extra-pulmonary samples, fluorescent microscopy detected 31 positive cas­es, while PCR detected 60 and 2 positive cases for Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium bovis respec­tively. The PCR analysis showed 28% of male patients and 32% female patients as positive for M. tuberculosis. Moreover, about52/164 pulmonary samples and 8/36 Extra-pulmonary samples were detected to be positive by PCR analysis. Conclusion: The PCR results were more accurate, rapid, sensitive and specie specific for detection of tuberculosis showing 60 positive cases for Mycobacterium tuberculosis and 2 positives for Mycobacterium bovis with a sig­nificant p-value. On the other hand, FM detected Mycobacterium tuberculosis with comparatively lower sensitivity with only 31 positive cases and had failed to distinguish between species.

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