Background: Due to the low sensitivity of current diagnostic tests and increasing medication resistance, diagnosing and treating tuberculous pleural effusion is difficult. Gene Xpert is a completely automated real-time nucleic acid amplification test that identify Mycobacterium tuberculosis besides rifampicin resistance within short time.
Objective: to assess the diagnostic role of Gene Xpert in the diagnosis of suspected cases of tuberculous pleural effusion and compare it's results with pleural biopsy results obtained by Abrahm's needle and Thoracoscope.
Patients and Methods: The present study was conducted on 60 patients who have strong suspicion of tuberculous pleural effusion after recording a written consent in Abasia chest hospitals at the period from November 2017 to May 2020.
Results: 7 patients (11.7%) from 60 were diagnosed with Gene Xpert and 42 patients (70%) with tissue biopsy,25 patients of them diagnosed through thoracoscope and 17 of them diagnosed through Abrams needle biopsy, there was significant variance between these two methods of biopsy (P > 0.05).
Conclusion: We concluded that, the Gene Xpert test has a restricted diagnostic capacity for pleural fluid samples of TB origin, which prevents its widespread application in this setting.