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AN INTER LABORATORY COMPARISON |
N Naganathan: NTI Newsletter 1974, 11, 27-28. |
The National Tuberculosis Institute (NTI), Bangalore
was established in 1959 and its bacteriological laboratory started
functioning from 1961. For the first few years WHO Experts were
involved in the establishment and running of the laboratory but
since many years the laboratory is being run only by the national
staff.
The laboratory has been involved in research and
training since its inception. In order to compare the standard of
the various tests done in the NTI laboratory with that of a similar
laboratory having some standing in tuberculosis research, a series
of comparison studies were done between NTI and the laboratory of
the Tuberculosis Chemotherapy Centre, Madras. The results were similar
except for variations within normal limits. Besides, some cultures
isolated in NTI laboratory were sent to the tuberculosis laboratory
of the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), Atlanta (Georgia) U.S.A.
for purpose of an inter-laboratory comparison. Forty seven cultures
were sent to CDC, of which 38 were M.tuberculosis, 1 rapid grower,
1 H37 RV, 3 M.avium, 2 M.bovis, 1 B.C.G and 1 M.phlei. But for some
minor variations in a few biochemical tests, the species classification
compared well between the two laboratories. Taking all the results
into account and making some allowance for unavoidable variations,
it was observed that the standard of bacteriological investigations
were similar between all the three laboratories.
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KEY WORDS: LABORATORY, TUBERCLE BACILLI, SPECIES.
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