The Place Importance of Serologic Techniques in Tuberculosis Dıagnosis

Abstract

Diagnosing active TB accurately and rapidly is a key challenge for eradicating the TB epidemic.Conventional culture methods are slow and staining methods not sufficiently sensitive. Nucleic acid amplification techniques (NAATs) tend to be costly and in some cases lack sensitivity. Antibody detection tests (serological tests) have a long history and have been used successfully for the rapid diagnosis of many infectious diseases (e.g., HIV, syphilis, and viral hepatitis). TB serological tests almost exclusively rely on antibody recognition of antigens of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by the humoral immune response, as opposed to antigen recognition by the cellular immune response (e.g. interferon-gamma release assays. These tests use various modifications of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) or immunochromatographic methods to detect different antibody classes. Cellular immunodiagnostics, including tuberculin skin test (TST) and Interferon-Gamma Release Assays (IGRAs) have been used to diagnose latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI). The TST is the only universally accepted test for the diagnosis of LTBI.