Value of gastric lavage for diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis

Objective: To evaluate the sensitivity of gastric lavage specimen for observation of acid fast bacilli and isolation of mycobacterium in patients proved to be suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis. Patients and Methods: A total number of 886 hospitalized patients in different hospitals of Urmia City were tested for pulmonary tuberculosis. Fifty-three patients were eventually enrolled in the study and one gastric lavage specimen was taken from each patient. Results: Among these fifty three, 44 had positive gastric lavage results and 43 were positive on culture, white both positive results of smear and culture were matched in all patients proved to be suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis. The highest positive rate was in 20 to 49 and 20 to 29 years for the culture and smear respectively but the lowest culture positive rate was in those patients who were in children and those over 60 years of age. Conclusion: Gastric lavage can be a valuable alternative specimen instead of sputum for diagnosis of tuberculosis in children and elderly patients if both smear and culture results are applied.