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. |