1.Post-mortem pulmonary tuberculosis: comparison of available diagnostic methods
Chainchel Singh, M.K. ; Johari, B. ; Naik, V.R. ; Lai, P.S. ; Siew, S.F.
Tropical Biomedicine 2023;40(No.2):165-169
		                        		
		                        			
		                        			Tuberculosis (TB) caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis remains a serious public health threat with 
the World Health Organisation (WHO) reporting 5.8 million cases and 1.3 million deaths in the year 
2020 due to TB. TB can be diagnosed by imaging, histopathological and bacteriological methods with 
culture remaining the gold standard. This study was performed to look at the sensitivity and specificity 
of post-mortem computed tomography (PMCT) imaging when compared to culture in diagnosing 
pulmonary tuberculosis. This was a retrospective comparative study looking at post mortem cases 
where lung tissue samples sent for TB culture at Hospital Kuala Lumpur were compared against PMCT 
imaging. Exclusion criteria included contaminated samples, decomposed cases, immunocompromised 
subjects and those below 18 years of age. Subjects included 80 medico-legal autopsy cases at the 
National Institute of Forensic Medicine, Hospital Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia who had whole body PMCT 
done in accordance with the Institute’s protocol and tissue samples sent for bacteriology culture for 
tuberculosis. PMCT findings were positively associated with acid-fast organisms in 23.5 out of 33 cases 
(71.2%). Our study also showed that PMCT had a sensitivity of 71.3% and specificity of 54.3% (95% CI: 
39.5–68.4) in diagnosing TB based on the protocol set in this study. This study showed that there was 
relatively good agreement between radiological PMCT findings and bacterial culture, suggesting that 
radiological examination is a relatively reliable tool for preliminary screening and possible diagnosis of 
TB prior to a postmortem examination which would be beneficial in reducing the risk of transmission 
of TB to health workers during autopsy.
		                        		
		                        		
		                        		
		                        	
            

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