Table 1– Study characteristics

Study	First author [ref.]	Year	Country	Setting	Blinding^#	Patient selection method	Prospective enrolment	HIV %	Children %	Culture reference standard	CRS	Total samples n	Specimen type (samples n)
1	Al-Ateah [14]	2012	Saudi Arabia	Tertiary care centre	Yes	Consecutive	Yes	0	2.9	MGIT/LJ	None	67	Pleural fluid (13) Lymph node (8) CSF (14)
2	Armand [15]	2011	France	Tertiary care centre	Yes	Convenience	No	2	2	MGIT/LJ	None	56	Pleural fluid (8) Lymph node (20) CSF (5)
3	Causse [16]	2011	Spain	Reference laboratory	Yes	Consecutive	Yes	0	15	MGIT/LJ	None	340	Pleural fluid (34) Lymph node (80) CSF (50)
4	Christopher [17]	2013	India	Tertiary care centre	Yes	Consecutive	Yes	0	0	MGIT	Histopathology/smear+culture on pleural biopsy/biochemical analysis of fluid	96	Pleural fluid (96)
5	Friedrich [18]	2011	South Africa	Tertiary care centre	Yes	Consecutive	Yes	28	0	MGIT	Histopathology/improvement on ATT/positive culture from any other site	24	Pleural fluid (24)
6	Hanif [19]	2011	Kuwait	Reference laboratory	No	Consecutive	Yes	0	0	MGIT/Bactec 460/LJ	None	29	Pleural fluid (11) Lymph node (9) CSF (5)
7	Hillemann [20]	2011	Germany	Reference laboratory	Yes	Consecutive	Yes	Unknown	5	MGIT/LJ	None	495	Pleural fluid (111) Lymph node (65) CSF (19)
8	Ligthelm [21]	2011	South Africa	Tertiary care centre	Yes	Consecutive	Yes	18.8	4.2	MGIT	Histopathology	48	Lymph node (48)
9	Malbruny [22]	2011	France	Tertiary care centre	No	Convenience	Yes	Unknown	6.8	MGIT	None	124	Pleural fluid (12) Lymph node (23) CSF (15)
10	Moure [23]	2012	Spain	Tertiary care centre	Yes	Convenience	No	11.2	0	MGIT/LJ	None	149	Pleural fluid (34) Lymph node (38) CSF (14)
11	Nhu [24]	2013	Vietnam	Tertiary care centre	No	Consecutive	Yes	34.8	0	MGIT	Clinical symptoms	386	CSF (386)
12	Patel [25]	2013	South Africa	Tertiary care centre	Yes	Consecutive	Yes	87	1.5	MGIT	NAAT	151	CSF (151)
13	Porcel [26]	2013	Spain	Tertiary care centre	No	Consecutive	Yes	0	0	LJ (confirmed Mycobacterium tuberculosis)	Histopathology/improvement on ATT/smear/biochemical profile/positive sputum	67	Pleural fluid (67)
14	Safianowska [27]	2012	Poland	Tertiary care centre	No	Consecutive	Yes	0	0	LJ (confirmed M. tuberculosis)	None	68	Pleural fluid (32) Lymph node (2)
15	Tortoli [28]	2012	Italy	Tertiary care centre	Yes	Convenience	No	10	33.5	MGIT/LJ	Histopathology/improvement on ATT	1491	Pleural fluid (330) Lymph node (118) CSF (138)
16	Vadwai [29]	2011	India	Tertiary care centre	Yes	Consecutive	Yes	3	2.8	MGIT/LJ	Histopathology/improvement on ATT/radiology	342	Pleural fluid (29) Lymph node (188)
17	Van Rie [30]	2013	South Africa	Tertiary care centre	Yes	Consecutive	Yes	100	0	MGIT	Histopathology/smear with species identification	353	Lymph node (344)
18	Zeka [31]	2011	Turkey	Tertiary care centre	Yes	Consecutive	No	1.4	13.3	Bactec 460/LJ	Histopathology/radiology	175	Pleural fluid (56) Lymph node (26) CSF (31)

Xpert MTB/RIF is manufactured by Cepheid (Sunnyvale, CA, USA), and the Mycobacteria Growth Indicator Tube (MGIT) and Bactec 460 are manufactured by BD (East Rutherford, NJ, USA). LJ: Löwenstein–Jensen culture; CRS: composite reference standard; ATT: antituberculous therapy; NAAT: nucleic acid amplification test; CSF: cerebrospinal fluid. ^#: this item refers to whether the reference standard results were interpreted without knowledge of the index test results; the Xpert result, being automated, was considered blinded to the reference standard result in all studies.