Introduction:Early diagnosis of tuberculosis is important for therapeutic reasons and to control the spread of infection [1,2]. Culture of M. tuberculosis is the gold standard method for the diagnosis of TB [3]. However, culture is a slow process requiring specialized laboratories and skilled staff. Hence there is a need for a rapid, cheaper and effective technique for the detection of the tubercle bacilli.
Material and methods:A total of 200 clinically suspected cases of tuberculosis were included in the study. All the cytological specimens procured were smeared and stained for both ZN and FL staining. A part of the sample was used for Lowenstein Jensen (LJ) culture. Patients on ATT were excluded from the study.
Results:The maximum cases were in the age group of 21-30 years. In 57% cases, patients were male with M:F ratio of 1.3:1. The sensitivity of FL (95.83%) was more as compared to ZN (91.67%). The difference in the case detection rate was statistically significant with p value 0.001. The average time taken to screen per slide by ZN was more (4.32 mins) as compared to that by FL (2.28 mins), reflecting a time saving by 47%.
Conclusion:FL staining has an upper edge in respect to efficacy, time saving and less observer fatigue. Hence replacement of the age old ZN technique and using FL microscopy may be considered as alternative for diagnosis of tuberculosis.