Gastric aspiration is not necessary for the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis.

Despite recommendations, gastric aspirate collected by invasive nasogastric aspiration is still routinely used for the direct detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in our institution. Reviewing 82 patients with culture-proven respiratory tuberculosis over a 28-month period, we observed no patient diagnosed solely by gastric aspirate analysis. Moreover, the diagnosis yield of gastric aspirate (60 %) did not significantly differ from that of stool specimen (64 %). These data confirm that gastric aspirate is no longer useful for the diagnosis of respiratory tuberculosis contrary to stool specimen.