What to do if an error in smear microscopy is detected during cross checking, especially on follow up and at end of treatment?
Ans: If error is detected at the time of diagnosis, check for other smear results, X-ray and whether patient has been started on treatment. If the patient was missed on diagnosis, he should be traced and put on treatment. If an error is detected on follow-up smear examinations, no change in treatment is undertaken based on the results of cross examination. To some extent, there are built-in mechanisms to handle this problem for e.g., re-examination of sputum smears after 5 months of treatment among those who are smear positive at 4 months. However, full efforts must be made to keep the errors on follow-up examinations to be minimum.
