Evaluation Of Polymerase Chain Reaction (pcr)in Diagnosisof Tuberculous Pleural Effusion:

Mohamed Ibrahim Abdel-fattah

The present study was cousaueal with the value of PCR technique in diagnosis of tuberculous pleural effusion and its correlation with other conventional methods of diagnsis of T.B such as Ziehl - Neelsen staining ,culture on lowenstein Jensen media and histopathological examination of the pleural biopsy .The study included 17 patients having pleural effusionThey were divided into 4 groups :-Group I : 6 patients with tuberculous pleural effusions .Mycobacterium tuberculosis was detected by one / or more of techniques : sputum ZN staining , sputum culture on LJ media , pleural fluid culture on U. media , pleural biopsy culture on LJ media or pleural biopsy granuloma.Group All : 3 patients with a histopathological evidence of tuberculosis (group I was excluded )Group III : 4 patients with clinical evidences of tuberculosis .Group IV : 4 patients with non tuberculous pleural effusion .Patients were subjected to a full history taking , a complete clinical examination , plain X . ray ( Posteroanterior and lateral views ) tuberculion testing ( Mantoux method ) , laboratory investigations ( total and differential leukocytic count , erythrocyte sedementation rate , fasting and 2 hours post prandial blood glucose levels , serum total proteins , serum albumin , liver function tests , renal function tests ) , sputumexamination for acid fast bacilli ( Z.N staining ) and sputum culture on LJ.