Tuberculosis diagnosis accuracy by quick test – GENEXPERT/MTB: integrative review

Abstract

Tuberculosis is a communicable disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It mainly affects the lungs, but can infect other organs. It presents symptoms such as cough, which can be productive or not, afternoon fever, night sweats and chest pain, asthenia, anorexia and weight loss. Diagnosis can be made through several techniques, with sputum being the material most colonized by Mycobacterium, therefore, the most used. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based methodologies are fast and sensitive, gradually becoming the preferred diagnosis of tuberculosis. Method capable of identifying small amounts of the pathogen in a wide variety of clinical material. The GeneXpert/MTB test has greater sensitivity, specificity, simultaneous identification of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, capacity to detect mutations resistant to Rifampicin and the possibility of detecting new cases in less time. The study aims to describe the studies that evaluated the accuracy of tuberculosis diagnosis by the GeneXpert/MTB rapid test. In an integrative review, 13 studies were selected that met the proposed objective. Many studies defend numerous advantages such as speed, sensitivity and acceptable specificity, which stand out in comparison with other diagnostic methods.