Diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis: recent advances and diagnostic algorithms

Pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) persists as a great public health problem in Korea. Increases in the overall age of the population and the rise of drug-resistant TB have reinforced the need for rapid diagnostic improvements and new modalities to detect TB and drug-resistant TB, as well as to improve TB control. Standard guidelines and recent advances for diagnosing pulmonary TB are summarized in this article. An early and accurate diagnosis of pulmonary TB should be established using chest X-ray, sputum microscopy, culture in both liquid and solid media, and nucleic acid amplification. Chest computed tomography, histopathological examination of biopsy samples, and new molecular diagnostic tests can be used for earlier and improved diagnoses, especially in patients with smear-negative pulmonary TB or clinically-diagnosed TB and drug-resistant TB.