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In the hospital, patients with suspected TB are placed in respiratory isolation (RI) as a preventive measure until their risk for infectivity is determined to be low. When no acid-fast bacilli (AFB) are detected on concentrated smears of three consecutive expectorated sputum samples obtained over ≥2 days, patients are removed from isolation. Although RI greatly decreases transmission, 4 to 7 days of RI while awaiting smear results is costly.
Nucleic acid amplification (NAA) testing has a higher sensitivity than smears, detecting as few as one Mycobacterium tuberculosis organism per 100 mL of sample. It is not routinely used to determine infectiousness, but might it work well in this regard? To find out, researchers conducted a prospective st…