The situation of tuberculosis (TB) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) drug resistance is still very serious in China. Improper treatment for TB may lead to a prolonged course of antimicrobial therapy and spreading of drug resistant strains. Thus, rapid detection of drug resistant strains will allow prompt initiation and adjustment of effective chemotherapeutic treatment of TB. Ethambutol (EMB) is a first line anti-TB drug. embB Met306 is located in a cytoplasmic loop that forms an EMB resistance determining region,1 Lety et al2 have demonstrated that a missense mutation in the M. smegmatis embB gene confers EMB resistance. The identification of mutations in embB gene may offer a means to rapidly screen M. tuberculosis isolates for EMB resistance. Thus, in this study, we analysed 197 isolates of M. tuberculosis from Chinese people and characterized mutations in the 258 bp region of the embB gene.