Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate: Is It An Important Diagnostic Index For Pulmonary Tuberculosis‪?‬

Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) by Westergreen and Ziehl- Neelsen staining techniques were performed on 128 samples collected between January 2010 to November 2011 in the city of Porto Novo ,Cape Verde among whom 73(57%) were males and 55(43%) were females. 8(6.25%) were positive for tuberculosis with elevated ESR in all the eight samples. In all the samples, 77.3% showed elevated ESR without evidence of pulmonary tuberculosis and elevated ESR were influenced by age. In conclusion, ESR could serve as an important prognostic index but not a diagnostic index unless used in conjunction with other specific tests such as cultural techniques, nucleic acid probes and nucleic acid amplification using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). ESR left alone cannot serve as an important diagnostic index for tuberculosis since elevated results were recorded even in the absence of disease.
KEYWORDS: Erythrocyte Sedimentation rate, Diagnostic index, pulmonary, Tuberculosis