Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used for direct detection of M.tuberculosis in negative clinical specimens. This method was conducted on all tuberculous specimens in 1997-2001 at hospitals. PCR could detect 60/100 (60%) sputum samples, 35/41 (85%) bronchial washes, 60/80 (70%) cerebrospinal fluids and 19/27 (70%) pleural fluids. Overall sensitivity of PCR for these AFB was 69%. False positive presented in only 2 out of 60 specimens of control group, the specificity therefore was 97%. For culture positive specimens: 60/86 tuberculosis meningitis, 19/27 tuberculosis pleural fluids, 35/41 pulmonary tuberculosis. The sensitivity of PCR for detection of M.tuberculosis ranged 60-85%, the specificity 90-100% for smear negative clinical specimens of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis and extra pulmonary tuberculosis.
Polymerase Chain Reaction ; diagnosis ; Tuberculosis

The effectiveness of PCR method in diagnosis extrapulmonary tuberculosis was evaluated on the total of 215 specimens collected from extrapulmonary tuberculosis patients and then was compared to cultural results and smear microscopy looking for M.tuberculosis. Results showed that, in the diagnosis, the overall sensitivity of PCR was 61.4%, higher than those of culture (18.1%) and smear microscopy (7.9%). Most of cultural positive cases were positive in PCR
Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Tuberculosis ; Diseases

Polymerase chain reaction was used to detect DNA sequence belonging to IS 6110, specific agent for M.tuberculosis, directly in pleural fluids of 48 patients suspected to be due to tuberculosis and 13 patients suspected to be due to lung cancer selected by clinical, biochemical and cytological data. Excepted 2 samples showed to have inhibition factors to the activity of tag polymerase, 33 of 48 samples were found PCR positive, giving a sensitivity of 72%. All 13 pleural fluids taken from patients with pleural effusion due to cancer were PCR negative. The results: PCR of pleural fluid can be a useful method for rapid diagnosis of pleural effusion due to tuberculosis, which is difficult to differentiate with those due to cancer.
Pleural Effusion ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Tuberculosis

The test was performed on 226 tuberculosis patients of different forms and 119 healthy controls and patients of other diseases. The results showed high percentage of tuberculosis patients having positive reaction, different significantly from healthy controls and patients with leprosy and lung cancer (71,43-100% versus 0-4%). Together with ELISA to detect IgG anti M.tuberculosis, glutaraldehyde test showed to have sensitivity of 84-87% in extrapulmonary cases, 89-100% in pulmonary tuberculosis and specificity about 94% when compared with final clinical diagnosis and data obtained from healthy controls
Tuberculosis ; Glutaral ; diagnosis

IgG antibodies to M.tuberculosis antigens were measured by ELISA directly in 51 pairs of sera and pericardial fluids taken from 51 patients with pericarditis at the time of diagnosis. Patients with pericarditis due to tuberculosis have significantly higher level of IgG antibodies in both sera and pericardial fluid than that of the patients with pericarditis due to the other causes and than that of normal, healthy controls. The sensitivity and specificity of ELISA were 84.2% and 88.5%, respectively. The positive and negative accordance of it was 80 and 90.3%
Tuberculosis ; Pericarditis ; Immunosorbents ; diagnosis ; therapeutics

Background: In the past decades, preventive medicine had achieved significant success by promoting the effective prevention. However, we were facing with the rising again of dangerous infectious diseases that had been controlled. Ministry of Health had approved the development support project for preventive medicine system to strengthen early detection and control diseases in time. Objectives: To survey the manpower and the demand for training in basic microbiology technique of Centres for preventive medicine. Subjects and method: Technicians of 29 centres for preventive medicine in North provinces were surveyed and the results were studied by the described cross method. Results: Number of technicians graduated difference, fluctuated from 3 to 14 person per unit. The women were 80.4%; men were 19.6%. The staff who have degrees of postgraduate was 5.3%; University graduated was 41.2%; middle-ranking was 53.6%. Their specialities were very different: medicine doctor was 15.2%; biologists were 8.8%. The rest were nurse, technicians convalesce nurse, Medical Public Health...(34.4%). Among the demand for obtain the train in Microbiology, basic and advance labiratory techniques, 19.4% were the requests for training in basic microbiology; 16.4% were for molecular technology; 21.4% were for bacterium isolate technology and 19.4% were for virus technology. Conclusion: The results were the basis of creating a appropriate technical training strategy to contribute to the success of the project.
Clinical Laboratory Techniques ; Education

Background: \r\n', u'In the antituberculosis chemotherapy, shortening treatment course, and applying new high effective methods are top prioritized. Of which,the immunotherapy with M vaccea an environmental saprophyte, combined with the antituberculosis medicines all over the world has been applied since 1985, aimed to enhance the host immune responses.\r\n', u'Objectives:\r\n', u'To evaluate the results after 6 months of shortened course anittuberculosis chemotherapy by combining the immunotherapy withM vaccae.\r\n', u'Subjects and method: \r\n', u'233 newly diagnosed pulmonary tuberculosis patients with AFB smear (+) selected from Centers for Tuberculosis Control in some districts of Ha Tay and Ha Noi. They are 15 above, and not the pregnant, breastfeeding, diabetes, HIV infections, and hepatitis B (Unnecessary) \r\n', u'Dividing randomly into 2 groups, group A was in treatment of the standard 8 month chemotherapy regimen, and group B was treated in a shortned 6 month chemotherapy regimen in combination with immunotherapy by using M. vaccae vaccine. \r\n', u'Results:\r\n', u'The rates of AFB (-) sputum of group B were 98,2% and 100% respectively, the rates of the group A were 97,4% and 99% respectively after 2 and 6 months of treatment. There are 88.5% and 100% for group B, 85.6% and 98.8% for group A at the same time to achieve a negative sputum culture for M. tuberculosis. IgM responses against M. tuberculosis sonicated antigen before and after the follow-up time in Group A are not changed, whereas this level of the immunotherapy group had reduced significantly at the 6th moth (P<0.05). There is no responses in IgC to M. tuberculosis of both groups during the same follow-up period. The mean weight of patients in group B was higher than that of group A after 2 and 6 months of treatment.\r\n', u'Conclusion:\r\n', u'M. vaccae vaccine brings good benefits when be combined with the chemo-immunotherapy for newly diagnosed pulmonary tuberculosis patients with AFB smear (+). The negative sputum indicators and clinic improvements in the chemo- immunotherapy group of treatment are better than that of chemotherapy only. This study created more effective method for treating tuberculosis infection.\r\n', u'
Tuberculosis ; Pulmonary ; Tuberculosis ; Mycobacterium tuberculosis ;

Aims: The objective of the study was to isolate bacteriophages and conduct a comprehensive analysis of their potential against Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) strains in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Methodology and results: Twelve Xoo strains were isolated from rice fields located in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Among these strains, three strains Xoo L019, L020 and L024, showed the highest disease index of bacterial blight. Four phages specific to Xoo were isolated from soil, water and leaf samples, and their morphologies were determined. In a test against 12 Xoo strains, phage L541, MLA23 or W41 could infect 10 of the 12 Xoo strains, while phage LBH01 could infect 8 of the 12 Xoo strains. The stability of the phages to pH, organic solvents, UV-A and UV-B was also evaluated. Conclusion, significance and impact of study The initial characterization of the phages indicates their potential as biocontrol agents against bacterial blight in rice. The study is one of the very first studies about Xoo phages in rice in Vietnam.

Background: Recently, microplate almar blue assay has been used commonly in detecting gen related to tuberculosis drug resistance, which provides results after 5-7 days with lower cost compared to traditional methods. Objective: To evaluate the application of microplate almar blue assay for rapid detection of drug resistance of M. tuberculosis strains. Subject and Method: A microplate-based assay which uses Alamar blue reagent - an oxidation reduction dye (MABA), was used for the determination of the anti-tuberculosis drug (isoniazid-INH, rifampicine-RIF, streptomycine-STR and ethabuton=EMB) resistance of 96 M. tuberculosis strains isolated from Vietnamese patients in comparison to those obtained by conversional method. Result: MABA showed to have high sensitivity and specificity in testing the sensitivity to individual anti-tuberculosis drugs (from 82.4% for STR to 93.3% for - INH and from 82.5% for EMB to 98.4% for STR; respectively), as well as for the multi-drug resistant M.tuberculosis (86.4% of sensitivity), highly correlated with the result determined by proportion method. Conclusion: MABA reveals the advantage in shortening test time, in simple performance and lower cost compared with the conversional culture based methods.
Microplate almar blue assay ; M. tuberculosis ; drug resistance

Background: Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) mutations have been identified as a prominent cause of some familial and sporadic neuroblastoma (NB). ALK expression in NB and its relationship with clinical and histopathological features remains controversial. This study investigated ALK expression and its potential relations with these features in NB. Methods: Ninety cases of NB at the Department of Pathology, University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam from 01/01/2018 to 12/31/2021, were immunohistochemically stained with ALK (D5F3) antibody. The ALK expression and its relations with some clinical and histopathological features were investigated. Results: The rate of ALK expression in NB was 91.1%. High ALK expression (over 50% of tumor cells were positive with moderate-strong intensity) accounted for 65.6%, and low ALK expression accounted for 34.4%. All the MYCN-amplified NB patients had ALK immunohistochemistry positivity, most cases had high ALK protein expression. The undifferentiated subtype of NB had a lower ALK-positive rate than the poorly differentiated and differentiated subtype. The percentages of ALK positivity were significantly higher in more differentiated histological types of NB (p = .024). There was no relation between ALK expression and: age group, sex, primary tumor location, tumor stage, MYCN status, clinical risk, Mitotic-Karyorrhectic Index, prognostic group, necrosis, and calcification. Conclusions ALK was highly expressed in NB. ALK expression was not related to several clinical and histopathological features. More studies are needed to elucidate the association between ALK expression and ALK gene status and to investigate disease progression, especially the oncogenesis of ALK-positive NB.