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Determination of fluorescent stain and Ziehl - Nelson stain for the demonstration of acid fast bacilli in cytological specimens

Background Tuberculosis is infectious disease caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis. There are various methods for the diagnosis of tuberculosis such as examination of tubercular bacilli by Ziehl – Nelson (ZN), Auramine – Rhodamine (AR), Kinyoun staining. The present study was conducted to know the prevalence, clinical characters, nature of specimens and tuberculosis confirmation by ZN & fluorescence staining technique using AR in 2101 clinically suspected cases of tuberculosis.

Methods This study was conducted as prospective study in Tertiary care hospital. Present study was done clinically suspected tubercular patients from January to July 2015. On all received samples ZN stain and fluorescent stain was applied.

Results Among the clinically suspected patients 689 (32.79%) was diagnosed with tuberculosis.  Fever (81.27%) was chief clinical complaint. Among the received specimens maximum cases was of sputum (pulmonary) tuberculosis (88.27%). Tuberculosis was diagnosed in (16.75%) cases with ZN staining and with fluorescent staining in (32.79%) cases.

Conclusions In present study fever was chief clinical complaint. Maximum cases of tuberculosis are of pulmonary tuberculosis than extra pulmonary and AR fluorescent staining is more sensitive.