Eum Seok-Yong, Lee Ye-Jin, Kwak Hyun-Kyung, Min Jin-Hong, Hwang Soo-Hee, Via Laura E, Barry Clifton E, Cho Sang-Nae
International Tuberculosis Research Center, Division of Immunopathology and Cell Immunology, Masan, Republic of Korea.
Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis. 2008 Jun;61(2):181-6. doi: 10.1016/j.diagmicrobio.2008.01.002. Epub 2008 Mar 4.
We evaluated the utility of the "QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube" (QuantiFERON) test that uses tuberculosis (TB)-specific antigens for the diagnosis of latent infection in such individuals. We also examined the correlation between the interferon (IFN)-gamma response to these antigens and the exposure risk to TB by evaluating antigen-specific IFN-gamma release in comparison with IFN-gamma release in response to purified protein derivative (PPD) in 3 groups: medical students, nurses in a TB hospital, and TB patients. All nurses and TB patients responded to PPD, whereas 52% (P < 0.0001) and 79.2% (P = 0.04) responded to QuantiFERON, respectively. In the medical students, only 10.4% responded to QuantiFERON, whereas 85.2% were positive to PPD (P < 0.0001). There was also a significant correlation between the levels of IFN-gamma production and the duration of employment in the group of nurses at the TB hospital, suggesting ongoing exposure in this high-risk group. Thus, these results demonstrate that Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific IFN-gamma release assay accurately discriminates low- and high-risk healthy subjects and might therefore be a useful diagnostic tool for the diagnosis of latent infection in Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG)-vaccinated individuals.
我们评估了使用结核特异性抗原的“管内QuantiFERON-TB Gold”（QuantiFERON）检测在诊断此类个体潜伏感染中的效用。我们还通过评估抗原特异性γ干扰素释放，并与3组人群（医学生、结核病医院护士和结核病患者）中对纯化蛋白衍生物（PPD）反应的γ干扰素释放进行比较，研究了对这些抗原的γ干扰素反应与结核暴露风险之间的相关性。所有护士和结核病患者对PPD均有反应，而对QuantiFERON有反应的分别为52%（P<0.0001）和79.2%（P=0.04）。在医学生中，只有10.4%对QuantiFERON有反应，而85.2%对PPD呈阳性（P<0.0001）。在结核病医院护士组中，γ干扰素产生水平与工作年限之间也存在显著相关性，表明该高危人群持续存在暴露情况。因此，这些结果表明，结核分枝杆菌特异性γ干扰素释放检测能够准确区分低风险和高风险健康受试者，因此可能是诊断卡介苗接种个体潜伏感染的有用诊断工具。
