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	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Wisnivesky et al¹ have recently addressed the conflicting issue of whether to place patients in respiratory isolation to prevent the nosocomial transmission of tuberculosis (TB). They provide a clinical rule derived from a case-control study that could avoid a substantial proportion of unnecessary isolation episodes.

We would like to contribute to the debate by commenting on some issues in their work. First, the authors compare patients isolated with a diagnosis of TB (cases) with patients isolated without TB (controls). Nevertheless, the true problem is not to distinguish patients with and without TB among those who have been isolated, but to distinguish them among the whole population of patients admitted to the hospital. In fact, 8 of the 73 patients with TB in this study were never isolated. It is likely that the sensitivity of the model would be lower should these 8 patients be included. Second, the study was performed . . . [Full Text of this Article]