Performance of tubex® TF in the diagnosis of enteric fever in private tertiary care hospital Peshawar,Pakistan

Objective: to evaluate the performance of tubex® tf in diagnosing enteric fever. methods: the retrospective study was performed at the northwest general hospital and research centre,peshawar,pakistan,and comprised data of all patients who had blood cultures and tubex®tf performed as part of their evaluation from april 2011 to november 2015. spss 16 was used for data analysis. results: of the 970 patients,salmonella typhi was isolated in 43(4.43%),paratyphi in 9(0.93%) and other organisms in 162(16.7%). tubex® tf was positive in 18(1.86%) cases and negative in 25(2.58%). of the culture-negative patients,tubex® tf was positive in 35(3.6%) and negative in 136(14%). in cases where no organism was cultured,tubex® tf was positive in 4(0.4%) and negative in 752(77.5%). the positive predictive value of tubex® tf was 31.58% and the negative predictive value was 97.26%. the sensitivity of tubex® tf was 41.86% while specificity was 95.97%. conclusion: tubex® tf with its low sensitivity and positive predictive value was a poor tool for diagnosing enteric fever. © 2017,pakistan medical association. all rights reserved.