Vol. 7 No. 01 (2026)
Articles

Investigation of conventional and molecular methods of Mycobacterium tuberculosis diagnosis: Smear microscopy versus GeneXpert MTB/RIF Assay

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  • Aisha Amber Soomro,
  • Suniya Shaikh,
  • Santosh Kumar Bathija,
  • Shaista Bano,
  • Sarfraz Tunio
Aisha Amber Soomro University of Sindh image/svg+xml
Suniya Shaikh University of Sindh image/svg+xml
Santosh Kumar Bathija University of Sindh image/svg+xml
Shaista Bano University of Sindh image/svg+xml
Sarfraz Tunio University of Sindh, Pakistan

Published 2026-06-30

Keywords

  • Mycobacterium tuberculosis; MTB, GeneXpert; Acid-fast bacilli; rifampicin resistance

Copyright (c) 2026 Sarfraz Tunio

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Investigation of conventional and molecular methods of Mycobacterium tuberculosis diagnosis: Smear microscopy versus GeneXpert MTB/RIF Assay. (2026). Journal of Life and Bio-Sciences Research, 7(01), 23-26. https://doi.org/10.38094/jlbsr701180

Abstract

The present study aimed to assess the diagnostic accuracy of the molecular technique GeneXpert MTB/RIF assay as compared to the conventional method of Acid-fast staining as well as the molecular detection of Rifampicin resistance in M. tuberculosis isolated from pulmonary specimens. A total of 610 patients suspected of TB were enrolled for diagnosis using GeneXpert MTB\RIF assay and Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) Stained smear microscopy. The data revealed that out of 610 patients, 45.41% (n=277) were female patients and (54.59% (n=333) were male patients. M. tuberculosis was detected by GeneXpert MTB/RIF assay in 60.82% (n=371) samples whereas, 63.44% (n=387) were smear positive using ZN staining. The Rifampicin resistance was detected in 11.15% (n=68) patients. In summary, the GeneXpert MTB/RIF assay demonstrated high sensitivity for rapid diagnosis of tuberculosis, particularly in smear-negative cases, and showed better performance compared with conventional Ziehl-Neelsen staining.

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