European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Background: India, like many other developing nations has seen a steady decline in pulmonary tuberculosis over the past decades due to successful implementation of RNTCP-DOTS programme nationwide and improvement in social & economic condition of the general population. It is now seen that extra-pulmonary presentations form a major proportion of new cases. A majority of them present as head and neck tuberculosis (TB) - tubercular cervical lymphadenopathy. In spite of advent of newer diagnostic tools like nuclear ploidy, genetic analysis, nuclear scan and so on, Ultrasonography (USG) being the simplest, quickest and non-invasive diagnostic modality with high sensitivity has gained a very significant place in clenching early diagnosis of neck nodes. Aims & Objectives To calculate the Sensitivity, Specificity & Predictive Accuracy of USG in diagnosis of Extra Pulmonary Tuberculosis (EPTB) when presenting as cervical lymphadenopathy. Material &Methods A prospective, cross sectional study was conducted for 12 months in a Medical College and Hospital among the patients attending the ENT, Surgery, Paediatrics and Medicine OPD & IPD with cervical lymphadenopathy. After estimating the sample size,172 patients were included in this study. After obtaining approval from the IEC and informed consent of the participants, they were selected according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Result The Sensitivity and Specificity of USG in reference to TB cervical lymphadenopathy were 91.43% and 84.38% respectively with a positive predictive value of 96.24% and negative predictive value of 69.23%. 15.63% were false positive and false negative were 08.57%. Conclusion USG is an effective, non-invasive, inexpensive and safe tool with a high Sensitivity which can become an important and integral screening modality in the diagnosis of Extra Pulmonary Tuberculosis.