Comparison of diagnostic BCG and mantoux tests in the early detection of tuberculosis in children

Objective: to compare the proportion of positive cases detected by bcg diagnostic and mantoux test in patients scoring ≥7 on modified keith edward's criteria. patients and methods: this was a cross sectional study conducted in paediatric department unit-i,bolan medical complex hospital quetta from november 2003 to 2004. two hundred children aged 0-15 years having tuberculosis on the basis of kenneth edwards criteria were included in this study. they were divided into two equal groups of 100. patients in group a were administered bcg diagnostic and group b mantoux test and results were read after 48-72 hours. results: out of 200 cases128 (64%) were male and 72 female (36%).bcg diagnostic was positive in 71% and mantoux test in 24% of cases,so total bcg diagnostic positivity was more than mantoux. bcg diagnostic was found to be statistically significant. among males 41 (54.2%) and females 30 (42.3%) were bcg diagnostic positive. bcg diagnostic was positive in 42(59.5%) in 1-5 year,19 (43.1%) in 6-10 year and 10 (38.4%) in1-15 years old. the sensitivity of diagnostic bcg was 71 %( 95%ci 64-77%) while the sensitivity of mantoux test was 24% (95% ci 18-30). the odds ratio was 7.75 (95%ci 4.96-12.10) with a p value of <0.01. conclusion: bcg diagnostic was more helpful than mantoux test. this study shows bcg diagnostic was more sensitive than mantoux in detection of tuberculosis allergy.