Interferon-gamma assays for the diagnosis of tuberculosis infection before using tumour necrosis factor-alpha blockers.
Int J Tuberc Lung Dis
; 11(11): 1177-82, 2007 Nov.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-17958978
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES:
Patients who receive tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) blockers are mostly immunosuppressed. A study was performed to investigate whether an interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) assay could represent an alternative approach to the tuberculin skin test (TST) for the diagnosis of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) in these patients.DESIGN:
We prospectively enrolled 106 individuals into the study in two groups. Group 1 consisted of 38 healthy individuals and Group 2 included 68 patients with chronic inflammatory diseases evaluated for LTBI before the use of TNF-alpha blockers.RESULTS:
Of all participants, nine had indeterminate IFN-gamma test results. Agreement between the two tests was poor in both groups (kappa values respectively -0.54 and 0.18). In a total of 97 subjects, 10 (10.3%) were positive by the IFN-gamma test and 49 (50.5%) by TST.CONCLUSION:
We found poor agreement between TST and the IFN-gamma test in our study. Our limited preliminary data should be accepted as a basis for designing future studies that will be helpful for physicians to decide whether the IFN-gamma test is more sensitive than the TST test in detecting LTBI before the use of TNF-alpha blockers.
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Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Tuberculosis
/
Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay
/
Interferon-gamma
/
Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha
Type of study:
Diagnostic_studies
Limits:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Language:
En
Journal:
Int J Tuberc Lung Dis
Year:
2007
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Turkey