Madhukar Pai

TL;DR: An updated meta-analysis of 38 studies found that sensitivity of IGRAs and TST was not consistent across tests and populations, but TSPOT.TB seemed to be more sensitive than QuantiFERON tests and T ST.

TL;DR: This updated Cochrane Review on the diagnostic accuracy of Xpert® MTB/RIF for pulmonary TB and rifampicin resistance detection was performed as part of a WHO process to develop updated guidelines on the use of the test.

TL;DR: New IGRAs have good specificity and show promise for detecting latent TB, particularly in BCG-vaccinated patients, and in the past decade, 2 new T-cellbased tests for diagnosing latent TB infection have been developed and licensed for commercial distribution in many countries.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors did a systematic review to assess the performance of interferon-γ assays in the immunodiagnosis of tuberculosis, and they found that using Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific region of difference 1 (RD1) antigens (such as early secretory antigenic target 6 and culture filtrate protein 10) may have advantages over the TST, in terms of higher specificity, better correlation with exposure to M tuberculosis and less cross-reactivity due to BCG vaccination and non-tuberculous mycob

TL;DR: The results suggest that, overall, fluorescence microscopy is more sensitive than conventional microscopy, and has similar specificity, and there is insufficient evidence to determine the value of fluorescence microscopeopy in HIV-infected individuals.