Clinical Evaluation of a Blood Assay to Diagnose Paucibacillary Tuberculosis via Bacterial Antigens.

BACKGROUND

The diagnosis of active tuberculosis (TB) cases primarily relies on methods that detect () bacilli or their DNA in patient samples (e.g., mycobacterial culture and Xpert MTB/RIF assays), but these tests have low clinical sensitivity for patients with paucibacillary TB disease. Our goal was to evaluate the clinical performance of a newly developed assay that can rapidly diagnose active TB cases by direct detection of -derived antigens in patients' blood samples.

METHODS

Nanoparticle (NanoDisk)-enriched peptides derived from the virulence factors CFP-10 (10-kDa culture factor protein) and ESAT-6 (6-kDa early secretory antigenic target) were analyzed by high-throughput mass spectrometry (MS). Serum from 294 prospectively enrolled Chinese adults were analyzed with this NanoDisk-MS method to evaluate the performance of direct serum antigen measurement as a means for rapid diagnosis of active TB cases.

RESULTS

NanoDisk-MS diagnosed 174 (88.3%) of the study's TB cases, with 95.8% clinical specificity, and with 91.6% and 85.3% clinical sensitivity for culture-positive and culture-negative TB cases, respectively. NanoDisk-MS also exhibited 88% clinical sensitivity for pulmonary and 90% for extrapulmonary TB, exceeding the diagnostic performance of mycobacterial culture for these cases.

CONCLUSIONS

Direct detection and quantification of serum antigens by NanoDisk-MS can rapidly and accurately diagnose active TB in adults, independent of disease site or culture status, and outperform -based TB diagnostics.