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Updated: Jun 10, 2026

A Tuberculosis Molecular Bacterial Load Assay (TB-MBLA)
Published on: April 30, 2020
Combination of molecular assay and clinical evaluation for early confirmation of tuberculosis cases
1Department of Microbiology, Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Abstract:
The cost-effectiveness of the ProbeTec ET Direct TB assay (DTB) was compared with that of culture for detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex in 361 acid-fast stain-positive respiratory specimens. The overall sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of DTB were 97.7%, 86.6%, 87.2% and 97.6%, respectively. When clinical evaluation was added to DTB, the specificity and positive predictive value of DTB increased to 94.7% and 95.4%, respectively. Treatment costs of $133,521 would have been saved in this cohort if DTB, instead of culture results, had been used to eliminate 'false-positive' smear results.
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