A question

[Sahrish123]

Hello.

I was diagnosed with active TB this year. Do you guys have any idea if your smear can be checked by looking at your blood tests? My doctor didn't tell me to do any sputum test but he has written smear negative in his prescription, which i noticed yesterday. What do I do?

[hottchoc]

Hi Sahrish123

Unfortunately a blood test can not prove if you are active or latent, because both will show up with antibodies, it is only a guide for further testing. What other tests have you had to diagnose you as being active?

[Sahrish123 in reply to hottchoc]

A bronchoscopy was done. The results said i had mtb.

[hottchoc in reply to Sahrish123]

Ok, so that’s why they don’t need to do any further tests to confirm your diagnosis because they have taken biopsies from your lung proving you have TB. Are they going to do any imaging?

[HelenC Partner TB Alert]

Hi Sahrish,

My understanding is that a bronchoscopy is used in a number of situations. They may have been unable to get a result from a sputum sample, your age or another health condition may make it difficult to find bacteria in a sputum sample, or they are also testing for other conditions such as lung cancer.

The fact that you have a positive test result for MTB does confirm TB, so you will need to follow your prescribed treatment.

There is a question about whether you are infectious or not - smear negative is a term usually used to refer to TB that is non-infectious. However, I suggest that you check this with your doctor to be sure.

If you do have an infectious form of TB then you would need to self-isolate until your treatment has started working, which is normally after two weeks.

Best wishes,

Helen