Prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis in a peri-urban community of Bangalore under various methods of population screening

Chakraborty, A.K.; Channabasavaiah, R.; Krishna Murthy, M.S.; Shashidhara, A.N.; Krishna Murthy, V.V. and Chaudhuri, K. (1994) Prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis in a peri-urban community of Bangalore under various methods of population screening. Indian Journal of Tuberculosis, 41. pp. 17-27.

Full text available as:

PDF - Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader or other PDF viewer. 50 Kb

Abstract

The role of initial screening of Population methods for bacteriological examination in tuberculosis case-prevalence surveys was studied in a population of 56,293 around Bangalore city. Symptom questioning by sociological investigators (SOCS), general health workers (FHW) and Mass Miniature Radiography (MMR) were used as the screening methods, independently of each other. Person found eligible for testing on the basis of the respective screening methods were subjected to smear and culture examination of sputum. It was found that FHWs had identified the same proportion of persons with general symptoms as well as chest symptomatics among the population as the SOCS, and that prevalence rates of culture as well as smear positives cases were about the same by any of the three methods. Prevalence rates of smear positives cases obtained through symptorn questioning, either by SOCS or FHWs, were more or less similar to the estimate obtained by the more comprehensive screening method of MMR and/or symptom questioning. The culture positive prevalence rate following MMR screening only was 0.25%, which was lower than the rates observed in other surveys. The paper discusses the possible hypothesis that could explain the observation. It also presents correction factors to compute rates comparable to the best estimate i.e., that obtained through comprehensive screening by MMR and/or symptom questioning, followed by sputum culture

Archive Staff Only: edit this record