Evaluation of the Cobas TaqMan MTB Test for the Detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex According to Acid-Fast-Bacillus Smear Grades in Respiratory Specimens

We evaluated the performance of the Cobas TaqMan MTB test (Roche Diagnostics, Basel, Switzerland), stratified by acid-fast bacilli (AFB) smear grades. The sensitivity of this test in smear-positive specimens was >95% in all grades, while that in trace and negative specimens was 85.3% and 34.4%, respectively.