IS THE BCG TEST OF DIAGNOSTIC-VALUE IN TUBERCULOSIS

Setting: In developing countries including Turkey, tuberculosis is sti ll a major problem. Rapid diagnosis and early medical intervention are the two most important considerations in preventing the spread of the disease. Objective: This study was carried out to determine the diagn ostic value of BCG test in childhood tuberculosis and compare it with tuberculin test in this regard. Design: 50 patients and 20 healthy chi ldren without any evidence of previous BCG vaccination and aged 80 day s-15 years were simultaneously tested with purified protein derivative (PPD) and BCG vaccine. Results: In pulmonary tuberculosis BCG test wa s positive in 100% of cases and the PPD test in 44.5%. Similarly, BCG test was positive in 100% of miliary tuberculosis and tuberculous meni ngitis cases but PPD test was negative in all of them. Out of 22 patie nts with malnutrition 18 (82%) had positive BCG test and 4 had positiv e PPD test. BCG test showed uniformly high positivity in all grades of malnutrition. Conclusion: BCG is more reliable and sensitive than the tuberculin test in the diagnosis of tuberculosis. It is still valuabl e in the diagnosis of tuberculosis especially in developing countries where the disease is still a major public health problem and where sop histicated methods such as rapid culture with BACTEC and demonstration of bacilli with DNA probes are not widely available.