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Quantiferon gets a mention under Tuberculosis;
Latent tuberculosis diagnosis in the United States usually consists of a tuberculosis skin test and/or chest X-ray. A new test the QuantiFERON Gold blood test is also used to diagnose latent tuberculosis infection. Many other countries, for example Mexico, do not test for latent tuberculosis infection as much of the population will be positive, either due to high tuberculosis incidence and/or use of the BCG vaccine. The tuberculosis skin test (TST), also called the tuberculin test or Mantoux test, detects an immune response to tuberculosis antigens. The test involves injecting a small amount of tuberculosis bacterial antigens (called PPD for purified protein derivative) under the skin and waiting several days to observe any reaction. The TST test is known to have several problems:The QuantiFERON Gold blood test was approved by the FDA in 2005 and does not suffer from many of the problems of the tuberculosis skin test.
- There are many false positives (that is people who have not been exposed to tuberculosis who test positive). Sometimes this is due to BCG vaccination, which can have cause people to have positive TST tests.
- The test requires trained personnel to evaluate whether it is positive or not.
- It requires two visits by the patient to a healthcare provider. This results in both inconvenience and many lost tests as patients may not return.
