Diagnosis of tuberculosis: state of the art SUMMARY: Rapid, affordable and accurate tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis is key to effective patient management and global TB control. Effective clinical screening and optimised sample acquisition methods remain the first steps in the diagnostic process. Smear microscopy, despite optimisation, remains widely used even though its sensitivity is poor. Mycobacterial liquid culture is accurate but poorly accessible. The use of novel molecular tools, such as Xpert1 MTB/RIF (Cepheid, Sunnyvale, CA, USA) or GenoType1 MTBDRplus (Hain Lifescience GmbH, Nehren, Germany) assays, which offer superior diagnostic accuracy and decreased time-to-diagnosis for drugsensitive and/or -resistant TB, is increasing following World Health Organization (WHO) endorsement and, in some countries, national roll-out is underway. In contrast, both serology (antibody-detection tests) and interferon->
