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Light emitting diode (LED) based fluorescence microscopy for tuberculosis detection: a review

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Abstract

Since time immemorial, tuberculosis (TB) has intimidated the human race owing to its severity. Its socio-economic burden has led to it being a major cause of concern. It is one of the world’s major causes of death from a single agent. Since most of the middle- and low-income countries are burdened with TB, sputum smear examination using conventional light microscopy is often the only resort for diagnosing TB. However, fluorescence microscopy is used as standard in most high-income countries, owing to its increased sensitivity. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs), being inexpensive, are increasingly gaining popularity as an alternative light source for fluorescence microscopy. It has been found to be highly efficient and has a lot of advantages over the conventional Ziehl-Neelsen-based bright field microscopy. In this review, we discuss about the usefulness of LED-based fluorescence microscopy in diagnosing TB and how it is superior to the other sources of light used.

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Funding

We thank SERB-Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, for the financial support (Project Number — ECR/2016/001944). We thank Dr. K. Satyamoorthy, Director, Manipal School of Life Sciences (MSLS), MAHE for his encouragement and Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Manipal for providing for providing the infrastructure facilities. We also thank Dr. K K Mahato, HoD, Department of Biophysics, MSLS, MAHE, Manipal for discussion.

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  1. Department of Biophysics, Manipal School of Life Sciences, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Manipal, Karnataka, 576104, India

    Anushka Ojha, Soumyabrata Banik, Sindhoora Kaniyala Melanthota & Nirmal Mazumder

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  1. Anushka Ojha
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  2. Soumyabrata Banik
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  3. Sindhoora Kaniyala Melanthota
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Correspondence to Nirmal Mazumder.

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Ojha, A., Banik, S., Melanthota, S.K. et al. Light emitting diode (LED) based fluorescence microscopy for tuberculosis detection: a review. Lasers Med Sci 35, 1431–1437 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10103-019-02947-6

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