Although an outreach worker comes to her home to watch her swallow seven pills each day, her most recent sputum test still contained the germ.

One sputum test is not enough: many people seem to quickly clear the infections on their own.

Patients take their medicine under the eyes of a guardian every day for six months and are given regular sputum tests to see if the pills are working.

But other doctors say a negative sputum test does not necessarily rule out pneumonic plague.

You may also be asked to cough up phlegm for a sputum test.

Instead of waiting for the results of the sputum tests, the consultants carried out a mediastinoscopy to get a biopsy.

Hospital officials said a sputum test revealed the presence of the Legionnaire's disease bacterium, but he has since been restored to good health.

Often, the only diagnostic tool I have is the sputum test, a procedure invented in 1882.

Like the sputum test, the only available medicines to treat the disease are from another era.

But tularemia seemed implausible because the patient's sputum test had shown no free bacteria.