Tuberculosis Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Tuberculosis, including details on symptoms, causes, treatment, pulmonary, mycobacterium.

Lot quality assurance sampling of sputum acid-fast bacillus smears for assessing sputum smear microscopy centers.

Selvakumar N, Murthy BN, Prabhakaran E, Sivagamasundari S, Vasanthan S, Perumal M, Govindaraju R, Chauhan LS, Wares F, Santha T, Narayanan PR

Tuberculosis Research Center (Indian Council of Medical Research), Mayor V. R. Ramanathan Rd., Chetput, Chennai 600 031, India. selvakumarn@hotmail.com

Assessment of 12 microscopy centers in a tuberculosis unit by blinded checking of eight sputum smears selected by using a lot quality assurance sampling (LQAS) method and by unblinded checking of all positive and five negative slides, among the slides examined in a month in a microscopy centre, revealed that the LQAS method can be implemented in the field to monitor the performance of acid-fast bacillus microscopy centers in national tuberculosis control programs.

Published 7 February 2005 in J Clin Microbiol, 43(2): 913-5.
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