Immunocompromised patients are at increased risk of development of active tuberculosis (TB). A targeted detection of latent tuberculosis (LTBI) in these high-risk groups should be performed especially if preventive treatment is planned. Despite the better diagnostic accuracy of IGRAs over the TST, the performance of immunodiagnostic tests is highly variable among different groups of immunocompromised people, including those with HIV infection. Clinical investigations about the presence and extent of antigen-specific T-cell immunity are becoming an area of active investigation and the need for antigen-specific functional T-cell assays that can be performed in routine diagnostic clinical laboratories is wideranging and significant.
A strategy incorporating different immunological assays and assessment of epidemiological and clinical risk factors for TB, may be capable of generating novel immune profiles to improve LTBI detection at screening and to identify those at risk of developing TB.
The objective of this project is to use in clinical practice a combinatorial multi-immunoassay analysis, comprising IFN¿ secretion, surface co-expression of CD25/CD134, and T cell proliferation in response to antigens of Mtb, already validated by our research group. This strategy could be capable of generating novel immune profiles that may improve in clinical setting LTBI detection in immunocompromised individuals at increased risk of developing active TB.
