Diagnosis of Smear-Negative Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Low-Income Countries: Current Evidence in Sub-Saharan Africa with Special Focus on HIV Infection or AIDS

Diagnosis Model in Smear-Negative Pulmonary Tuberculosis Using Faster R-CNN

“…The explanation is as follows: 1) TB symptoms, such as fever, cough, cough with phlegm, coughing up blood and weight loss, are similar to the symptoms of lung cancer (Bhatt et al, 2012), pneumonia (Uzoka et al, 2011), and also infection Acute Respiratory Tract (ARI), asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) (TB CARE I, 2014), 2) In pediatric patients, the clinical picture of TB is non-specific, lung photographs are difficult to interpret (Kusuma, 2007) and sputum is difficult to obtain ( WHO, 2012), 3) In cases of a small number of germs (paucibacillary TB) (Kusuma, 2007;Nesredin, 2012) The diagnosis of pulmonary TB with negative BTA and positive culture can be confirmed by sputum culture, but it takes 6 to 8 weeks. In addition, equipment for culture is rarely found in developing countries (WHO, 2015; Mello et al, 2006;Muvunyi, 2006), so the use of culture is limited and rarely recommended. Methods such as nucleid acid amplication tests, can provide faster results, but are expensive and the equipment is not often found in developing countries.…”

“…However, the results of CXR examination between active and inactive tuberculosis are difficult to differentiate. For this reason, an accurate final diagnosis is very necessary to reduce costs and the possibility of cases of underdiagnosis and overtreatment (Bhatt et al, 2012;Muvunyi, 2006). TB disease can be cured, but if treatment is delayed it can increase the risk of death.…”