Early diagnosis is essential for the control and prevention of tuberculosis (TB). The objective of this study was to investigate the feasibility and performance of loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) in the diagnosis of pulmonary TB in county-level microscopy centers in Qingdao, Eastern China. A total of 523 presumptive TB patients were consecutively recruited between July 2017 and April 2018, and 22 patients were excluded from the analysis. Of 102 culture-positive cases, TB-LAMP identified 91 cases, demonstrating a sensitivity of 89.2%. In comparison, the sensitivity of routine smear microscopy was 69.6% (71/102), which was significantly lower than that of TB-LAMP (P=0.001). In addition, TB-LAMP sensitivities in smear-positive and smear-negative samples were 98.6% and 67.7%, respectively. In conclusion, our data demonstrate that TB-LAMP outperforms conventional smear microscopy in TB diagnosis, which could be used as an alternative method for smear microscopy in resource-limited settings in China.
Comparison of loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay and smear microscopy with culture for the diagnostic accuracy of tuberculosis
