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The relative test performance characteristics of two commercial assays for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex in paraffin-fixed human biopsy specimens

Steven J Drews1,2,4*, AliReza Eshaghi1, Daria Pyskir1, Pam Chedore1, Ernesto Lombos1, George Broukhanski1, Rachel Higgins1, David N Fisman1,3, Joanne Blair1 and Frances Jamieson1,4

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Author affiliations

1 Public Health Laboratories Branch, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

2 Department of Microbiology, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

3 Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

4 Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

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Citation and License

Diagnostic Pathology 2008, 3:37 doi:10.1186/1746-1596-3-37

Published: 8 September 2008

Abstract

The Seeplex™ TB Detection-2 assay (Rockville, MD) is a nested endpoint PCR for the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) targets IS6110 and MPB64 that utilizes dual priming oligonucleotide technology. When used to detect the presence of MTBC DNA in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue specimens, the sensitivity and specificity of this assay is equivalent to a labor-intensive traditional endpoint PCR assay and is more sensitive than a commercial real-time PCR assay.