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International Journal of Zoology and Applied Biosciences Research Article
Quantitative assessment of mycobacterial load through sputum smear grading and truenat CFU/mL measurement
Khutade Kalpesh, Hadal Ashwini, Narlya Manisha, Dhinde Harshila, Shah Harshada
Year : 2025 | Volume: 10 | Issue: 5 | Pages: 67-74
Received on: 31/07/2025
Revised on: 17/08/2025
Accepted on: 07/09/2025
Published on: 30/09/2025
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Khutade Kalpesh, Hadal Ashwini, Narlya Manisha, Dhinde Harshila, Shah Harshada( 2025).
Quantitative assessment of mycobacterial load through sputum smear grading and truenat CFU/mL measurement
. International Journal of Zoology and Applied Biosciences, 10( 5), 67-74.
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Abstract
This study assessed mycobacterial load in sputum samples using smear microscopy grading and Truenat CFU/mL quantification, and evaluated the correlation between these diagnostic methods. Sputum specimens were collected from suspected pulmonary tuberculosis patients. Prepared sputum smears were stained using the Ziehl-Neelsen method, and the same sputum samples were tested using the Truenat platform. 85 (14.2%) tested positive for mycobacterium tuberculosis using Truenat. The infection rate was higher in males (61.2%), with the highest prevalence observed in the 21–30 age group. Of the 85 Truenat-positive cases, 66 (77.6%) were also positive on smear microscopy. Notably, adult males were more likely to present with high-grade smears (3+), indicating greater infectivity. The correlation between smear grade and Truenat CFU/mL was statistically significant (Chi-square = 4.2736, p = 0.0387), meeting the threshold for significance at p < 0.05. Bacterial loads ranged from 2.7 × 10¹ to 5.6 × 10? CFU/mL. A high bacterial load (?10? CFU/mL) was observed in over 21% of patients, reflecting advanced disease stages. However, Truenat demonstrated superior diagnostic performance, achieving 100% sensitivity and specificity, compared to smear microscopy, which showed 61.67% sensitivity and 76% specificity.
Keywords
Microscopy, Mycobacterial load, Truenat, Ziehl-neelsen staining, Diagnostic sensitivity, Specificity.
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© The Author(s) 2025. This article is published by International Journal of Zoology and Applied Biosciences under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (creativecommons.org), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
