Blood tests for active TB not accurate or cost-effective

Wednesday, August 10, 2011 - 16:00 in Health & Medicine

Commercial blood serum antibody tests—widely used in India and other developing countries to diagnose active tuberculosis—are not accurate or cost-effective, according to an analysis by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the University of Washington School of Public Health and McGill University. Use of serological tests in India resulted in more DALYs (years of healthy life lost to premature death and illness), more secondary infections, and more false-positive diagnoses of TB, compared to the use of microscopic sputum smear analysis or culture. The findings, published in the August 9, 2011 edition of PLoS Medicine, recently led the World Health Organization to recommend against the use of commercial serology tests in the diagnosis of active TB.

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