Introduction: Worldwide, Extrapulmonary Tuberculosis (EPTB) accounts for 15-20% of all cases of TB. The diagnosis of EPTB is a big challenge, as the number of Mycobacterium tuberculosis(MTB) bacilli in the tissues and other organs is often very low. Truenat MTB/RIF (rifampicin) is a novel method, which is battery operated, point-of-care and chip-based Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) micro device. Aim: To evaluate Truenat as a screening test in the diagnosis of EPTB in comparison with microscopy and culture. Materials and Methods: A prospective cross-sectional study was carried out over a year in which samples from suspected cases of EPTB fitting in the inclusion criteria were subjected to Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) staining for smear microscopy, culture on Lowenstein Jensen (LJ) medium and PCR for MTB by Truenat. Comparisons were made between the tests and the data was presented using summary statistics with 95% Confidence Interval (CI). Results: A total of 248 samples were received from suspected cases of EPTB. Out of the different samples tested, 9 (3.6%) were positive with Truenat MTB. The predominant type of EPTB observed in the study was lymph node Tuberculosis (TB) (66.6%) followed by intestinal, pleural and skeletal TB. Out of the 106 samples tested for culture, four were culture positive for MTB and out of 178 samples tested for microscopy, three were positive for acid fast bacilli. Sensitivity, specificity, Negative Predictive Value (NPV), Positive Predictive Value (PPV), observed agreement of Truenat with culture and microscopy were 100%, 95.1%, 100%, 44.4%, 95.3% and 100%, 96.6%, 100%, 33.3%, 96.6%, respectively. Conclusion: Truenat MTB test is a cost-effective rapid molecular test with good sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of EPTB in low resource settings.

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Background: Procalcitonin (PCT) was found to be a valuable and reliable biomarker for sepsis, especially in critical care patients for whom early recognition and prompt treatment could reduce mortality. Aims and Objectives: This study was aimed at correlating the levels of PCT as diagnostic marker for sepsis in relation to the culture positivity of various samples from blood, respiratory, urine, and exudates from patients admitted in a tertiary care hospital. Materials and Methods: Results of PCT level along with bacterial culture results of blood, respiratory, urine, and exudates were analyzed from 780 patients for a period of 1 year. Results: High PCT values ranging from 0.52 to 200 ng/ml were found in 331 patients admitted with suspected sepsis. Out of 135 cases of sepsis, 85 had blood culture positivity alone and 50 had culture positivity in blood and in other sites with the same organism. Among the 85 cases of bloodstream infections, in which no localized infections were identified, the median PCT was 33 for Gram-negative bacteremia, which was significantly higher as compared with a median of 16 for Gram-positive cocci. In UTI with bacteremia, the median PCT was 45.34 and in UTI without bacteremia, it was 5. Conclusion: From this study, we concluded that PCT values may be useful to distinguish Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteremia, and furthermore, a high PCT value for patients with UTI may be helpful in predicting bacteremia.

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