Authors : Bhakti K, Ranjit Kangle
DOI : 10.18231/j.ijpo.2019.038
Volume : 6
Issue : 2
Year : 2019
Page No : 199-202
Objective: To determine the efficacy of modified bleach method in the detection of tuberculosis in lymph node aspirates in comparison to conventional Ziehl Neelsen method.
Materials and Methods: FNAC was performed on the 65 patients, clinically suspected as having tubercular lymphadenopathy, over a period of one year. The aspirated material was used to make 3-4 smears on clean glass slides. 95% ethyl alcohol was used as a fixative to fix one or two smears which were then stained by Papanicolaou stain. The rest of the smears were air dried and then stained with May Grunwald Giemsa stain and conventional Ziehl Neelsen (ZN) stain. Smears were prepared by Modified bleach method and further stained with ZN method.
The data was entered in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and it was analyzed by Kappa statistics.
Results: Out of the 13 cases of granulomatous lymphadenitis, 3 cases were positive for acid fast bacilli (AFB) by both ZN and modified bleach method, one case was positive by ZN method but was negative with bleach method and one case which showed bleach positivity showed ZN negativity. Out of 6 cases of acute suppurative lymphadenitis, 2(33.3%) cases showed both ZN and bleach positivity. Out of 34 cases of reactive lymphadenitis, 2(5.88%) cases showed only bleach positivity while none of the cases showed ZN positivity.
Conclusion: Bleach method is as efficacious as ZN method in the diagnosis of tubercular lymphadenitis with higher grade of AFB positivity. This method is safe.
Keywords: Modified bleach method, ZN method, Granulomatous lymphadenitis.