title: Rapid culture-based diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis in developed and developing countries.
abstract: Culturing Mycobacterium tuberculosis remains the gold standard for the laboratory diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis, with 9 million new cases and 1.5 million deaths mainly in developing countries. Reviewing data reported over 20 years yields a state-of-the-art procedure for the routine culture of M. tuberculosis in both developed and developing countries. Useful specimens include sputum, induced sputum, and stools collected in quaternary ammonium preservative-containing sterile cans. The usefulness of other non-invasive specimens remains to be evaluated. Specimens can be collected in a diagnosis kit also containing sampling materials, instructions, laboratory requests, and informed consent. Automated direct LED fluorescence microscopy after auramine staining precedes inoculation of an egg-lecithin-containing culture solid medium under microaerophilic atmosphere, inverted microscope reading or scanning video-imaging detection of colonies and colonies identification by recent molecular methods. This procedure should result in a diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis as fast as 5 days. It may be implemented in both developed and developing countries with automated steps replaceable by manual steps depending on local resources.
authors.affiliation: Faculté de Médecine, URMITE, UM63, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 7278, IRD 198, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale 1095, Aix Marseille Université Marseille, France.
authors.forename: Shady
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Asmar
authors.affiliation: Faculté de Médecine, URMITE, UM63, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 7278, IRD 198, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale 1095, Aix Marseille Université Marseille, France.
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Drancourt
keywords: Mycobacterium tuberculosis; culture media; developing countries; diagnosis; pulmonary tuberculosis