[New technologies and quality assurance for the diagnosis of tuberculosis]

There are two clearly different directions for the diagnosis of tuberculosis. One is to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacilli directly from clinical specimens, and the other is to detect the immunological responses indicating M. tuberculosis infection. The former is mostly effective to diagnose already developed tuberculosis as a disease using bacteriological techniques, while the latter is useful to diagnose the infection itself and tuberculosis with paucibacillary manifestation. It means that the bacteriological examinations contribute to detect active tuberculosis, and the immunological methods are useful to diagnose latent or sub-clinical tuberculosis infections, respectively.