Performance of tuberculin skin test and quantiferon-TB-gold in tube assay in diagnosing active and latent tuberculosis in high burden settings

ABSTRACT

Background: many clinicians wish to employ Mycobacterium tuberculosis [MTB]-specific interferon gamma [IFN-gamma] release assays [IGRAs] as a diagnostic test, for active tuberculosis [TB]. They are alternative or adjunct to the tuberculin skin test [TST] in screening for latent tuberculosis infection [LTBI], but there are scarce data directly comparing the tests performance in high burden settings for the diagnosis of active and/or latent TB in low- and middle- income countries [LMICs]