INTRODUCTION Rheumatoid arthritis patients under treatment with anti-TNF-α are at a high risk of developing active tuberculosis, and therefore, screening for latent tuberculosis infection is recommended before anti-TNF-α therapy. OBJECTIVE To compare the tuberculin test and IFNγ production induced by culture filtrate proteins(CFPs) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific CFP-10 antigens in rh...

The traditional concept that the tuberculin reaction when positive will remain so for the rest of the patient’s life has been widely accepted for many years. The present study was carried out to detect tuberculosis in its earliest phases by means of a positive tuberculin reaction in individuals who reacted negatively to previous test or tests. These positive patients were then followed by repea...

Until some time ago, the tuberculin skin test was the only available screening test for the diagnosis of tubercular infection. Now the new interferon-? release assay QuantiFERON-TB Gold shows promise of greater accuracy in the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis-infected subjects. The aim of our study was to evaluate the use of QuantiFERONTB Gold in children and to verify its agreement with...

SETTING Malnutrition and intestinal parasites cause immunosuppression. This may cause false-negative tuberculin skin tests (TST) and failure to identify tuberculosis (TB) infection. OBJECTIVE To assess factors associated with TST positivity and anergy in disadvantaged communities in Peru. DESIGN A study of 212 randomly selected adults: 102 in a rural Amazonian village and 110 shanty town re...

Objective. Use of tuberculin skin tests (TSTs) and interferon gamma release assays (IGRAs) as part of tuberculosis (TB) screening among immigrants from high TB-burden countries has not been fully evaluated. Methods. Prevalence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection (MTBI) based on TST, or the QuantiFERON-TB Gold test (QFT-G), was determined among immigrant applicants in Vietnam bound for the U...

The T cell response to a mixture of eight peptides derived from sequences of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis 16-, 19- and 38-kD antigens (MTBmix-8) has been studied. The peptides were selected on the basis of complementary binding to nine HLA-DR molecules (HLA-DR1 to DR9). MTBmix-8 at 6.25 and 50 micrograms/ml gave rise to significant stimulation (P < 0.05) of peripheral blood mononuclear cells ...

BACKGROUND Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a chronic debilitating disease and is a cause of morbidity and mortality in livestock, wildlife and humans. This study estimated the prevalence and risk factors associated with bovine tuberculosis transmission in indigenous cattle at the human-animal interface in the Serengeti ecosystem of Tanzania. RESULTS A total of 1,103 indigenous cattle from 32 her...

This study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of tubercular infection and compute the Annual risk of tuberculosis infection (ARTI) in Bijnor district of western Uttar Pradesh through a hospital-based tuberculin survey conducted at a pediatric hospital. A total of 1085 children below 18 years (0-4 years 866, 5-17 years 219), attending the out-patient department during October 2007 through ...

BACKGROUND Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is an important bacterial infectious disease in Albania of concern to animal and human health; its prevalence is poorly documented. METHODS In this longitudinal study, we tested by ELISA 2661 serum samples, from 154 herds, with the aim of establishing the suitability of this approach to screen the bovine population for bTB. In a follow-on survey of 87 anim...