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Updated: Jul 16, 2025

Diagnosing Pulmonary Tuberculosis with the Xpert MTB/RIF Test
Published on: April 9, 2012
Diagnostic value of nucleic acid amplification tests for tuberculous pleural effusion
Xu-Hui Wen1,2, Yu-Ling Han1,2, Xi-Shan Cao1
1Department of Laboratory Medicine, the Affiliated Hospital of Inner Mongolia Medical University, Hohhot, 010010, China.
Abstract:
Diagnosing tuberculous pleural effusion (TPE) is challenging for pulmonologists and laboratory scientists. The gold standards for TPE diagnosis are pleural fluid Ziehl-Neelsen staining, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) culture and pleural biopsy. These tools have limitations, including low sensitivity, long turnaround time and invasiveness. The nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) is a rapid and minimally invasive tool for diagnosing TPE. This review summarizes the diagnostic accuracy of available NAATs for TPE, with a focus on the evidence from systematic reviews and meta-analyses. The NAATs summarized in this review include in-house NAATs, GeneXpert-MTB/RIF, GeneXpert-MTB/RIF Ultra, simultaneous amplification and testing-tuberculosis, FluoroType MTB and loop-mediated isothermal amplification.
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