New Delhi, April 26 Screening for both active and dormant tuberculosis (TB) infection simultaneously can help improve detection, which is key for better outcomes, according to a study.
The new strategy, proposed by a team of researchers led by Queen Mary University of London, can curtail infection rates, potentially save lives. It provides a solution to problems with current TB screening, which does not always accurately detect disease.
"Global TB control requires early identification and treatment of TB in risk groups. Our novel screening algorithms show that screening for active and dormant TB can be done simultaneously with high accuracy for migrants from countries where TB is common to improve individual and population benefits,” said Dr Dominik Zenner, Clinical Reader in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Queen Mary.
Researchers hope that this new approach, published in the European Respiratory Journal, will inform guidance from global health organisations and key decision-makers on the most effective way to screen for TB.
TB is the deadliest infectious diseases globally, with 10.8 million new cases and 1.25 million deaths in 2023.
The infection can remain dormant in the body for some years without causing the symptoms of the disease but may cause active disease in the future especially among certain people at high risk.
Accurate testing of both active and dormant infection is therefore of critical importance in screening programmes, explained the researchers.
The team examined data on 13 different TB tests as described in 437 original studies and published systematic reviews. These data were then used to estimate how good screening tests are at both correctly identifying TB and avoiding false positive results.
They found that including some immunological tests for dormant TB infection (TBI tests) added value to TB screening algorithms. TBI tests could also support earlier diagnosis of harder to detect TB, including extrapulmonary TB (disease that occurs outside the patient’s lungs) or TB in children.
This novel approach challenges existing protocols for TB testing, which reserve TBI tests for diagnosing dormant TB only.
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