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
. 2022 Mar;34(2-3):258-261.
doi: 10.1177/10105395211060119. Epub 2021 Dec 7.

Evaluation of Sputum-Culture Results for Tuberculosis Patients in the United States-Affiliated Pacific Islands

Smita Ghosh  1 , Derrick Felix  1 , J Steve Kammerer  1 , Sarah Talarico  1 , Richard Brostrom  1 , Angela Starks  1 , Benjamin Silk  1
Affiliations

Evaluation of Sputum-Culture Results for Tuberculosis Patients in the United States-Affiliated Pacific Islands

Smita Ghosh et al. Asia Pac J Public Health. 2022 Mar.

Abstract

Sputum-culture confirmation guides tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis and patient management but has previously been reported to be low in the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI). We evaluated factors associated with positive sputum-culture results by analyzing TB case surveillance and laboratory data, including sputa quality and quantity for diagnostic specimens from the USAPI. A lower proportion of sputum specimens were reported as culture positive from the USAPI (42%), compared with Hawaii (58%) and the United States (55%). Few (3%) sputa collected from TB patients in the USAPI had both optimal quality and quantity; 40% had optimal quality (mucoid), and 7% had optimal quantity (>5 mL). Suboptimal sputum specimen quality and quantity contributed to fewer sputum-culture positive results in the USAPI. Improving sputum collection and handling might lead to more culture positive results and ultimately improve patient care and TB control in USAPI.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

References

    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Report of verified case of tuberculosis: tuberculosis surveillance data training manual. Atlanta, GA: US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Published 2009. Accessed December 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/tb/programs/rvct/instructionmanual.pdf.
    1. US Department of the Interior (DOI)/Office of Insular Affairs. Compacts of free association. Washington, DC. Accessed December 2020. https://www.doi.gov/oia/compacts-of-free-association.
    1. Bamrah S, Desmond E, Ghosh S, et al. Molecular epidemiology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the United States–Affiliated Pacific Islands. Asia Pac J Public Health. 2014;26(1):77–84. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Chiang SS, Swanson DS, Starke JR. New diagnostics for childhood TB. Infect Dis Clin N Am. 2015;29(3):477–502. - PubMed
    1. Sepulveda EVF, Yunda LFI, Herrera KCM, Moreno GC. Extrapulmonary tuberculosis in Colombian children: epidemiological and clinical data in a reference hospital. Int J Mycobacteriol. 2017;6(2):132–137. - PubMed

Publication types