Quantiferon vs. tuberculin testing in detection of latent tuberculous infection among chronic renal failure patients

Latent tuberculous infection (LTBI) lacks a solid gold standard in its diagnosis and many clinicians rely upon tuberculin testing, however there has been an increasing interest in depending on Interferon Gamma Release Assays especially Quantiferon-Gold (QFT-G). Since chronic renal failure (CRF) poses an important health problem in Egypt and taking into consideration the immuno compromisation caused by this condition, LTBI detection emerged as an important health concern in those patients. In this study, the aim was to find which tool was better in the detection of LTBI in CRF patients. Forty patients with chronic renal failure and on hemodialysis, with exclusion of active tuberculosis and other immuno compromisation conditions were tested for LTBI by tuberculin skin test (TST) and QFT-G. 25% of the tested showed LTBI. It was found that although both tests gave comparable results, yet there was a discrepancy between both. TST+/QFT+ group was 10%, TST+/QFT− group was 5%, TST−/QFT+ was 10% and TST−/QFT− group was 75%.Conclusion: In Chronic renal failure and probably any immuno compromisation setting, it would be better to perform both tuberculin and Quantiferon tests to detect latent tuberculous infection.