Abstract: Objective  To explore the feasibility of the application of liquid culture in the early diagnosis of TB in patients living with HIV/AIDS, and provide a reference for Chinese Mtb/HIV co-infection prevention and treatment.   Methods  We selected 10 cities (8 enrolled eventually) from 5 provinces of Global Fund Mtb/HIV control Program, provided liquid culture screening for 2162 eligible cases within 15 199 new findings and previous follow-up of HIV/AIDS patients, recorded the results and compared the TB diagnosis rate with the whole 15 199 patients in the same place and national 67 186 cases of HIV/AIDS patients during the same period screened by routine tuberculosis screening methods.  Results  The positive TB diagnosis rate of experimental group’s samples was 14.2%(306/2162), which is significantly higher than the overall rate (5.2%,793/15 199) of the same area over the same period, the difference was statistically significant (χ²=254.9，P<0.0001）; also, the positive TB diagnosis rate of the experimental group （14.2%）and overall TB diagnosis rate of the same area （5.2%,793/15 199）were both higher than the tuberculosis diagnosis rate in HIV/AIDS patients of whole country (2.3%, 1525/67 186), the difference was statistically significant(χ²=1150.7,393.8; P both<0.0001）.   Conclusion  Compared with tuberculosis symptomatic screening, sputum smear, chest X-ray examination and other routine tuberculosis screening methods, liquid culture can significantly improve the TB detection rate in HIV/AIDS patients, which is very important for early  TB diagnosis in HIV/AIDS patients and is of great significance to be promoted nationwide.

Key words: HIV infections, Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Bacteriological techniques, Evaluation studies