What did the researchers do and find?
TB
A total of 62 large primary care clinics in South Africa were randomized to either our intervention—TB testing of sputum of all people in high-risk groups, or our control—to continue symptom directed testing for TB (the standard of care).The total number of TB cases diagnosed each month in all clinics was recorded. Comparisons were made between intervention and control clinics.In trial intervention clinics, 6,777 people were diagnosed with TB, an average of 20.7 patients per clinic month versus 6,750 in control clinics, an average of 18.8 patients with TB per clinic month.After adjusting for clustering, province, and the strata of average number of TB patients diagnosed per month in the last quarter of 2017, intervention clinics diagnosed 14% more patients with TB than control clinics, but this did not reach statistical significance. Secondary analyses, including data from the year prior to the intervention, demonstrated a statistically significant increase in TB diagnoses per month, reported as a 17% relative increase.