Understanding TB Diagnostic Tests

Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr Emily MacLean about the exciting modern tests both commercially available and in research development for diagnosing tuberculosis. Emily talked to us about how GeneXpert has evolved and how we can get the most out of this amazing test but also about the extraordinary diagnostic tests being investigated at the moment from blood tests of host response to bacilli to AI learning cough acoustic markers of tuberculosis!REFERENCES:MacLean, Emily, et al. "Diagnostic accuracy of stool Xpert MTB/RIF for detection of pulmonary tuberculosis in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis." Journal of clinical microbiology 57.6 (2019): e02057-18.Singhroy, Diane N., et al. "Adoption and uptake of the lateral flow urine LAM test in countries with high tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS burden: current landscape and barriers." Gates open research 4 (2020).MacLean, Emily Lai-Ho, et al. "Integrating tuberculosis and COVID-19 molecular testing in Lima, Peru: a cross-sectional, diagnostic accuracy study." The Lancet Microbe (2023).Zifodya, Jerry S., et al. "Xpert Ultra versus Xpert MTB/RIF for pulmonary tuberculosis and rifampicin resistance in adults with presumptive pulmonary tuberculosis." Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2 (2021).APA | Mishra, Hridesh, et al. "Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra and Xpert MTB/RIF for diagnosis of tuberculosis in an HIV-endemic setting with a high burden of previous tuberculosis: a two-cohort diagnostic accuracy study." The Lancet Respiratory Medicine 8.4 (2020): 368-382.APA | Kohli, Mikashmi, et al. "Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra and Xpert MTB/RIF assays for extrapulmonary tuberculosis and rifampicin resistance in adults." Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 1 (2021).APA | Branigan D. Tuberculosis Diagnostics. Nov 2022. Available at:https://www.treatmentactiongroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/pipeline_TB_diagnostics_2022.pdfMacLean, Emily, et al. "Advances in molecular diagnosis of tuberculosis." Journal of clinical microbiology 58.10 (2020): e01582-19.Sweeney, Timothy E., et al. "Genome-wide expression for diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis: a multicohort analysis." The Lancet Respiratory Medicine 4.3 (2016): 213-224.Sutherland, Jayne S., et al. "Diagnostic accuracy of the Cepheid 3-gene host response fingerstick blood test in a prospective, multi-site study: interim results." Clinical Infectious Diseases 74.12 (2022): 2136-2141.Moreira, Flora Martinez Figueira, et al. "Blood-based host biomarker diagnostics in active case finding for pulmonary tuberculosis: A diagnostic case-control study." EClinicalMedicine 33 (2021): 100776.Peter, Jonny G., et al. "Effect on mortality of point-of-care, urine-based lipoarabinomannan testing to guide tuberculosis treatment initiation in HIV-positive hospital inpatients: a pragmatic, parallel-group, multicountry, open-label, randomised controlled trial." The Lancet 387.10024 (2016): 1187-1197.