Interferon-Gamma Release Assays for the Diagnosis of Tuberculosis in Adults

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Investigator: Adithya Cattamanchi, MD
Sponsor: World Health Organization (WHO)

Location(s): Uganda; Tanzania; Zambia; South Africa; China; India; Iran; Turkey; Bulgaria

Description

The diagnostic value of interferon-γ release assays (IGRAs) for active tuberculosis in low- and middle-income countries is unclear.

We searched multiple databases for studies published through May 2010 that evaluated the diagnostic performance of QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT-GIT) and T-SPOT.TB (T-SPOT) among adults with suspected active pulmonary tuberculosis or patients with confirmed cases in low- and middle-income countries. We summarized test performance characteristics with use of forest plots, hierarchical summary receiver operating characteristic (HSROC) curves, and bivariate random effects models.