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Use of the QuantiFERON‐TB Gold interferon‐gamma release assay for screening transplant candidates: a single‐center retrospective study
Author(s) -
Theodoropoulos N.,
Lanternier F.,
Rassiwala J.,
McNatt G.,
Preczewski L.,
DeMayo E.,
Stosor V.,
Ison M.G.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
transplant infectious disease
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.69
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1399-3062
pISSN - 1398-2273
DOI - 10.1111/j.1399-3062.2011.00666.x
Subject(s) - medicine , tuberculin , quantiferon , interferon gamma release assay , tuberculosis , latent tuberculosis , gold standard (test) , single center , transplantation , indeterminate , retrospective cohort study , liver transplantation , mycobacterium tuberculosis , gastroenterology , pathology , mathematics , pure mathematics
N. Theodoropoulos, F. Lanternier, J. Rassiwala, G. McNatt, L. Preczewski, E. DeMayo, V. Stosor, M.G. Ison. Use of the QuantiFERON‐TB Gold interferon‐gamma release assay for screening transplant candidates: a single‐center retrospective study.
Transpl Infect Dis 2011. All rights reservedBackground. Tuberculosis (TB) reactivation is a rare but significant complication of organ transplantation, and screening of all transplant candidates for latent infection is recommended with either an interferon‐γ release assay (IGRA) or tuberculin skin test (TST).Methods. After institutional review board approval, we retrospectively collected data to describe the yield of transplant candidate screening using the QuantiFERON‐TB Gold (QFT) and QuantiFERON‐TB Gold In‐Tube (QFT‐IT) assays since the institution of TB screening in 2008 and the epidemiology of all cases of post‐transplant TB in our institution since 2004.Results. A total of 2392 patients were screened with either the QFT or QFT‐IT assay through October 2009; 245 (10.2%) tested positive and 206 (8.6%) were indeterminate. Of those with positive results, 107 (43.7%) were foreign born and most of the remainder had prior TB exposures. Of the tests performed at a reference lab, 29% were indeterminate, whereas 14% were indeterminate using our in‐house lab. The majority of indeterminate results were seen in liver transplant candidates (40.6% vs. 11.8% in non‐liver candidates). Three of 694 (0.43%) screened patients who underwent transplantation developed TB post transplant.Conclusions. Post‐transplant TB occurs at a low rate with universal IGRA‐based candidate screening, which is comparable to studies using TST screening.