Field Evaluation of a Simple Fluorescence Method for Detection of Viable Mycobacterium tuberculosisin Sputum Specimens during Treatment Follow-Up

ABSTRACTSimple tuberculosis (TB) treatment monitoring tools are needed. We assessed the performance of fluorescein-diacetate (FDA) smear microscopy for detection of viable Mycobacterium tuberculosisin sputum specimens (n= 288) of TB cases under treatment compared to culture (17.4% culture positivity). FDA sensitivity was moderate (83.7% [95% confidence interval {CI}, 70.3 to 92.6]), and specificity was low (66.1% [59.5 to 72.2]). The good negative predictive value (94.8% [90.1 to 97.8]) and negative likelihood ratio (0.2) suggest using this method to rule out treatment failure in settings without access to culture.