Azmi, Liyana
(2013)
Quantiferon-TB gold in-tube performance for diagnosing active and latent tuberculosis in Malaysian population.
Other.
Pusat Pengajian Sains Kesihatan, Universiti Sains Malaysia.
(Submitted)
Abstract
Halting the progression of active tuberculosis (TB) involves the detection ofTB from a
latent stage. Currently, in-vitro interferon-gamma assays (!GRAs) are being used to
detect for active TB as well as latent TB besides Tuberculin Skin Test (TST). One of
IGRA used to diagnose for Latent Tuberculosis Infection (LTBI) is the QuantiFERONTB
(QFT) Gold assay which measures the levels of interferon gamma stimulated by
QFT peptides (CFP-10, ESAT 6 and TB7.7) in patient plasma. However, the
information regarding the performance of this kit especially in Malaysian population is
limited. Therefore this study aims to test for the sensitivity and specificity of the QFT
kit in Malaysian population. Whole blood samples were collected from 47 confirmed
TB patients, 28 high-risk TB individuals (healthy contacts) and 24 BCG vaccinated
low-risk TB individuals (non-TB) and stimulated with TB antigens prior to ELISA for
QFT. Specificity and sensitivity of the QFT was analysed based on known TB patients
and non-TB individuals. The specificity of QFT was determined as 79.16 % among
low-risk patients and the sensitivity of QFT for Malaysian population was 68.08%
among confirmed TB patients. Meanwhile, the percentage of positivity for latent TB
detected among high-risk TB patients was 46.42%. Our study showed comparable
results to the studies conducted at other neighbouring regions such as Singapore and
India. Our findings revealed that the QFT is also suitable to be used as a diagnostic kit
for the detection ofTB and latent TB.
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