Simple Cough Test Spots Tuberculosis

Diagnosing tuberculosis in children may be a simpler task than doctors have thought, a new South African study suggests. A quick, easy test where kids simply cough up one specimen of sputum is as effective at diagnosing tuberculosis (TB) as the expensive, complicated and widely used procedure called gastric lavage, the researchers report. "Our trial establishes that a single induced sputum is very useful for diagnosing TB in children, even in infants," said Dr. Heather J. Zar, director of the department of pediatric pulmonology at the University of Cape Town. She is the author of a report on the procedures that appears in the Jan. 8 issue of The Lancet.