Publications by authors named "John Baptist Kato"
Background: Sputum-based testing is a barrier to increasing access to molecular diagnostics for tuberculosis (TB). Many people with TB are unable to produce sputum, and sputum processing increases assay complexity and cost. Tongue swabs are emerging as an alternative to sputum, but performance limits are uncertain.
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- Reliance on sputum testing hampers access to TB molecular diagnostics, leading researchers to explore tongue swabs as a potential alternative.
- From June 2022 to July 2023, a study in Kampala, Uganda, involved 397 adults to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of tongue swab qPCR against traditional sputum tests.
- The findings indicate a high concordance (98.2%) between tongue swab qPCR and sputum tests, with sensitivity at 91.0% and specificity at 98.9%, suggesting that tongue swabs could effectively facilitate TB diagnosis.