Clinical Utility of CT-Based Bronchial Aspirate TB-PCR for the Rapid Diagnosis of Pleural Tuberculosis

摘要

BackgroundThoracoscopic pleural biopsy is often required for rapid and confirmative diagnosis in patients with suspected pleural tuberculosis (PL-TB). However, this method is more invasive and costly than its alternatives. Therefore, we evaluated the clinical utility of the chest computed tomography (CT)-based bronchial aspirate (BA) TB-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test in such patients.