Abstract: Objective To investigate the diagnostic delays of newly smear positive cases in Hubei.Meth ods Consulting the history of new smear positive cases in 6 counties.Results To collected 108 cases in 6 counties/cities.The average time of patient delay,doctor delay and total delay was 4.6 weeks,6.4 weeks and 8.7 weeks,respectively.The initial symptoms of delayed patients were cough (88.9%),expectoration (78.7%) and hypodynamia (37.0%),etc.The main delayed reasons were paying no attention to symptoms (58.7%),economic difficulties (34.8%).Only 10.2% of patients had sputum smear results.Other patients were only diagnosed by X ray examination.Conclusion The main reason of patient delay was that patients did not care for their own health,the main reason of doctor delay was that doctors paid more attention to X rays examination than sputum inspection.

Key words: Tuberculosis,pulmonary/diagnosis, New smear positive, Diagnostic delay