Tuberculosis culture testing at a tertiary care hospital: options for improved management and use for treatment decisions.

Setting: Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, a tertiary care hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Objectives: To determine the proportion of patients with positive Mycobacterium tuberculosis cultures and whether those who were positive were on treatment.

Design: Tuberculosis (TB) culture results were obtained from the laboratory for a 3-month period.