BACTERIOLOGY <<Back
 
 
152
SERODIAGNOSIS OF PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS BY KAOLIN AGGLUTINATION TEST
Sujatha Chandrasekaran, EV Venkataramana Gupta, MM Chauhan, GVJ Baily, K Chaudhuri: Indian J TB 1990, 37, 11-15.

The limitation of microscopy, culture and radiology in the diagnosis of tuberculosis, especially smear negative and extra pulmonary, are well known. Hence, attempts have been going on to find a suitable serodiagnostic test. One such test was based on Kaolin Agglutination using tuberculo phosphatide as antigen. A study was done to find out the usefulness of this test in the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis. Serum specimens from 297 newly diagnosed tuberculosis patients and 208 healthy controls, were subjected to Kaolin Agglutination Test (KAT) using tuberculo phosphatide as antigen. Of the 297 X-ray positives, 184 were sputum smear positive and 237 were culture positive for M.tuberculosis. A titre of >= 16 was taken to be diagnostic.

The test picked up 53.6 percent of the culture positives and 54.0 percent of the microscopy positives correctly. Also, 48.8 percent of the X-ray positives and 14.2 percent of the healthy controls were found positive. The overall sensitivity of KAT was 53.6 percent and specificity 85.8 percent which does not make the test suitable for diagnosis of tuberculosis.

KEY WORDS: SERODIAGNOSIS, SENSITIVITY, SPECIFICITY, KAOLIN AGGLUTINATION TEST, CASE-FINDING TOOL.
 
  <<Back