Five hundred subjects were included in this work. They were divided into four groups. Group 1 included 350 newly discovered patients with active , sputum positive pulmonary tuberculosis. Group H included 50 patients with respiratory diseases other than pulmonary tuberculosis. Group 111 included 50 patients with non respiratory disease. Group IV included 50 clinically apparently healthy subjects as a control group. The subjects were subjected to full history taking, complete clinical examination , plain chest x-ray , tuberculin test , sputum examination for acid fast bacilli , erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and glutaraldehyde test (G.T.) . Glutaraldehyde test was positive in 289 cases ( 82.6%) in group 1, 5 cases ( 10°/0) in group II, 8 cases ( 16%) in group III , while all cases of the control group were negative for G.T. Among the tuberculous group there were 276 cases ( 78.9%) positive for both G.T. and tuberculin test , 6 cases ( 17%) were negative for both tests, 13 cases ( 37%) were positive for G.T. but negative for tuberculin test and 55 cases (15.71%) were negative for G.T. but positive for• tuberculin test. The correlation between G.T. and ESR in the tuberculous group was statistically significant. It was found that the sensitivity of G.T. was 82.6% and specificity was 91.3% in the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis |
