Magnetic Resonance Imaging and GeneXpert: A Rapid and Accurate Diagnostic Tool for the Management of Tuberculosis of the Spine.

CONCLUSIONS: Majority of the patients with tuberculosis of the spine can be diagnosed on the basis of a typical radiological presentation via MRI. In our study, 84.8% cases exhibited typical MRI findings. For patients presenting with atypical MRI features, a rapid and accurate diagnosis is possible by combining GeneXpert with MRI. The combined use of MRI and GeneXpert is a rapid and highly sensitive tool to diagnose tuberculosis and rifampicin resistance in patients with tuberculosis of the spine. Furthermore, we achieved a 97.9% sensitivity for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and 100% sensitivity for the detection of rifampicin resistance in our study.
PMID: 27790312 [PubMed - in process]

Source: Asian Spine Journal - October 31, 2016 Category: Orthopaedics Tags: Asian Spine J Source Type: research