Abstract

Background: Recently, molecular detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in a respiratory specimens is accepted as one of the standard procedures for diagnosis of tuberculosis in Korea. When detecting tuberculosis using a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), results showed the repeated near-cutoff values in a specimen make it difficult for the laboratory to give definitive reports as positive or negative.
Methods: We retrospectively evaluated clinical state of ninety-eight patients who were not currently taking antituberculosis medications and had near-cutoff values of respiratory specimens using a real-time PCR test.
Results: Sixty-eight percent of the patients had clinical tuberculosis. In subgroup analysis, patients less than the age of 50, 94.3% had tuberculosis while only 55.6% of the patients with the age of equal and over 50 had tuberculosis (p < 0.001).
Conclusions: Setting a gray zone for real-time PCR result and give additional tailored information onto the interpretative report would be suggested for the clinical practice in an intermediate burden of tuberculosis country.

DOI: 10.7754/Clin.Lab.2015.150119