Rapid Slide Culture for Mycobacterium: Rsc:relevance to Modern Day Diagnosis of Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis is one of most important infectious disease of man today, accounting for 25% of all deaths in developing countries. Early diagnosis of tuberculosis and initiating prompt treatment has been the mainstay in interrupting the transmission of infection to others in the community. Any single patient of tuberculosis identified early and treated is equivalent to a life saved. Further, from public health point of view, even a single case detected and timely treatment given, breaks the transmission or spread of infection. It is well documented that a single open case of pulmonary tuberculosis can spread the infection to 10-15 other healthy people. Rapid slide Culture technique, when compared to LJ culture which is the gold standard for the isolation and identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is a good, cheap, effective and sensitive test for obtaining culture confirmation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. RSC can be used for case detection and drug sensitivity studies as it takes only 7 days for obtaining results.