Improved Detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Sudanese Children by use of Insertion Sequence IS6110

Abstract

This study was carried out in Khartoum state during the period from January 2010 to December 2013 to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis in children with symptoms of tuberculosis infection using different conventional and advanced diagnostic techniques. One hundred ninety seven specimens of gastric lavage and sputum were collected from different hospital in Khartoum state.specimens were decontaminated and inoculated on Lowenstein Jensen media according to modified Pettrof’s method, two smears were prepared and stained by Ziehl Neelsen stainbacterial DNA was extracted from each specimen by using phenol chloroform method, and then the Polymerase Chain Reaction technique was adopted to detect Insertion Sequence IS6110 gene of M. tuberculosisin in these specimens. This study showed that the positive results for ZN, Culture and PCR were 16 (8.1%), 32 (16.2%) and 35(17.8%) respectively. The study concluded that the PCR technique is a most sensitive and specific technique for a fast identification of M. tuberculosis in gastric lavage and sputum from children who are unable to expectorate good quality sputum sample or diagnosed as negative using conventional diagnostic methods.