RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Rapid diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis and detection of drug resistance by combined simultaneous amplification testing and reverse dot blot JF Journal of Clinical Pathology JO J Clin Pathol FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Association of Clinical Pathologists SP jclinpath-2017-204714 DO 10.1136/jclinpath-2017-204714 A1 Yiwen Chen A1 Lahong Zhang A1 Liquan Hong A1 Xian Luo A1 Juping Chen A1 Leiming Tang A1 Jiahuan Chen A1 Xia Liu A1 Zhaojun Chen YR 2017 UL http://jcp.bmj.com/content/early/2017/11/14/jclinpath-2017-204714.abstract AB Aims Making a correct and rapid diagnosis is essential for managing pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB), particularly multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of the combination of simultaneous amplification testing (SAT) and reverse dot blot (RDB) for the rapid detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) and drug-resistant mutants in respiratory samples.Methods 225 suspected PTB and 32 non-TB pulmonary disease samples were collected. All sputum samples were sent for acid-fast bacilli smear, SAT, culture and drug susceptibility testing (DST) by the BACTECTM MGITTM 960 system. 53 PTB samples were tested by both RDB and DNA sequencing to identify drug resistance genes and mutated sites.Results The SAT positive rate (64.9%) was higher than the culture positive rate (55.1%), with a coincidence rate of 83.7%. The sensitivity and specificity of SAT for diagnosing PTB were 66.7% and 100%, respectively, while those for culture were 53.9% and 84.2%, respectively. RDB has high sensitivity and specificity in identifying drug resistance genes and mutated sites. The results of RDB correlated well with those of DST and DNA sequencing, with coincidence rates of 92.5% and 98.1%, respectively.Conclusions The combination of SAT and RDB is promising for rapidly detecting PTB and monitoring drug resistance in clinical laboratories.