A portable, battery-operated molecular test using tongue swabs has shown strong accuracy for tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis in India, offering results within 12 to 25 minutes and promising to simplify testing in peripheral and resource-limited settings. The MiniDock MTB platform, evaluated in a multi-country study published in the New England Journal of Medicine and including Indian sites such as Christian Medical College Vellore, met World Health Organization (WHO) performance targets for near-point-of-care TB diagnostics.
In the trial involving 1,380 participants across seven countries, the device detected TB with 85.7 per cent sensitivity using sputum swabs and 79.6 per cent sensitivity with non-invasive tongue swabs, while maintaining specificity above 97.5 per cent for both sample types. Researchers noted that the platform’s performance with sputum samples was comparable to the widely used Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra assay and significantly superior to traditional smear microscopy, underscoring its potential to upgrade frontline diagnostic capacity.
Clinicians said the biggest advantage of tongue swabs is their ease and acceptability, especially for children, elderly patients and people living with HIV who often struggle to produce sputum, as well as for primary and peripheral health centres with limited infrastructure. The test’s battery operation, rapid turnaround and swab-based sampling could enable faster case detection and earlier initiation of treatment in high-burden communities, while reducing dependence on centralised laboratories.
Experts pointed out that although tongue swab sensitivity is slightly lower than sputum-based testing, the modality still meets WHO accuracy thresholds and can be integrated as part of a broader diagnostic algorithm to expand access without compromising quality. With India’s National TB Elimination Programme seeking scalable, cost-effective point-of-care tools, the validation of this tongue-swab test is seen as a significant step towards more patient-friendly and decentralised TB diagnosis, particularly in rural and hard-to-reach settings.
