Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 Oct 29;8(10):e77456.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0077456. eCollection 2013.

Diagnostic accuracy and turnaround time of the Xpert MTB/RIF assay in routine clinical practice

Nakwon Kwak  1 , Sun Mi Choi, Jinwoo Lee, Young Sik Park, Chang-Hoon Lee, Sang-Min Lee, Chul-Gyu Yoo, Young Whan Kim, Sung Koo Han, Jae-Joon Yim
Affiliations

Diagnostic accuracy and turnaround time of the Xpert MTB/RIF assay in routine clinical practice

Nakwon Kwak et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The Xpert MTB/RIF assay was introduced for timely and accurate detection of tuberculosis (TB). The aim of this study was to determine the diagnostic accuracy and turnaround time (TAT) of Xpert MTB/RIF assay in clinical practice in South Korea. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients in whom Xpert MTB/RIF assay using sputum were requested. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) for the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) and detection of rifampicin resistance were calculated. In addition, TAT of Xpert MTB/RIF assay was compared with those of other tests. Total 681 patients in whom Xpert MTB/RIF assay was requested were included in the analysis. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV of Xpert MTB/RIF assay for diagnosis of PTB were 79.5% (124/156), 100.0% (505/505), 100.0% (124/124) and 94.0% (505/537), respectively. Those for the detection of rifampicin resistance were 57.1% (8/14), 100.0% (113/113), 100.0% (8/8) and 94.9% (113/119), respectively. The median TAT of Xpert MTB/RIF assay to the report of results and results confirmed by physicians in outpatient settings were 0 (0-1) and 6 (3-7) days, respectively. Median time to treatment after initial evaluation was 7 (4-9) days in patients with Xpert MTB/RIF assay, but was 21 (7-33.5) days in patients without Xpert MTB/RIF assay. Xpert MTB/RIF assay showed acceptable sensitivity and excellent specificity for the diagnosis of PTB and detection of rifampicin resistance in areas with intermediate TB burden. Additionally, the assay decreased time to the initiation of anti-TB drugs through shorter TAT.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

References

    1. Foulds J, OBrien R (1998) New tools for the diagnosis of tuberculosis: the perspective of developing countries. The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease 2: 778–783. - PubMed
    1. Perkins MD, Cunningham J (2007) Facing the crisis: improving the diagnosis of tuberculosis in the HIV era. Journal of Infectious Diseases 196: S15–S27. - PubMed
    1. Steingart KR, Ramsay A, Pai M (2007) Optimizing sputum smear microscopy for the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis. Expert review of anti-infective therapy 5: 327–331. - PubMed
    1. Joh J-S, Lee CH, Lee JE, Park Y-K, Bai G-H, et al. (2007) The interval between initiation of anti-tuberculosis treatment in patients with culture-positive pulmonary tuberculosis and receipt of drug-susceptibility test results. Journal of Korean medical science 22: 26–29. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Boehme CC, Nabeta P, Hillemann D, Nicol MP, Shenai S, et al. (2010) Rapid molecular detection of tuberculosis and rifampin resistance. New England Journal of Medicine 363: 1005–1015. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources