| Variables |
Suspected patients |
| Gender |
Frequency |
% |
| Male |
149 |
63.1 |
| Female |
87 |
36.9 |
| Female |
87 |
36.9 |
| Past history of tuberculosis |
|
|
| Previous infection |
70 |
29.7 |
| Contact with TB patient |
14 |
5.9 |
| Symptoms |
|
|
| Cough |
220 |
93.2 |
| Fever |
145 |
61.4 |
| Loss of weight |
180 |
76.3 |
| Chest pain |
150 |
63.6 |
| Night sweat 96 40.7 |
|
|
| Duration of symptoms more than 3 weeks |
172 |
72.9 |
Conventional diagnostic methods yielded 39.8% smear-positive and 60.2% smear- negative, whereas the growth of mycobacterium in LJ media appeared in 51.4% sputum samples, table (2). The mean detection time of MTB in LJ media was 23.7 days. Concerning the culture result as the gold standard diagnostic method, 10.7% of the smear positive and 28.6% of the smear-negative were falsely diagnosed. |
