EFFICACY OF HRCT IN IDENTIFYING ACTIVE PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS

Introduction - The aim of the study is to show the role of high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) in the diagnosis of active pulmonary tuberculosis. The appearance of tree buds in HRCT is more sensitive than chest X-ray in detecting early endobronchial spread, 97% of patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis had evidence of bronchogenic spread in HRCT. Place and Duration: In the Department of Radiology, Jinnah Hospital Lahore for one-year duration from April 2019 to April 2020. Materials and methods. One hundred patients with clinically suspected active pulmonary tuberculosis with chest X-rays suggestive of disease were subjected to HRCT. Results - HRCT results showed that 76 patients had active pulmonary tuberculosis, and further clinical studies showed that the definitive diagnosis of the disease was confirmed in 52 patients. According to the binomial test, the combination of the two main symptoms of HRCT, the median-lobular nodule and the symptoms of "tree in embryo" accurately confirms the diagnosis of tuberculosis. The sensitivity of HRCT in the diagnosis of active pulmonary tuberculosis in this study was 96%, and the negative predictive value was 93%. Conclusion - We concluded that HRCT is a powerful and reliable diagnostic tool in the diagnosis of tuberculosis, which means that it can be used even before obtaining mycobacteriological results. Key words • HRCT • active pulmonary tuberculosi