ABSTRACT
Purpose: To compare QuantiFERON®-TB Gold and tuberculin skin testing as diagnostic tests for intraocular tuberculosis in HIV positive and negative patients.Methods: A prospective study evaluating two different tests to help diagnose intraocular tuberculosis.Results: Thirty-five of 106 patients (33.0%) were diagnosed with intraocular tuberculosis including 11 (31.4%) with HIV infection. Patients were 6.95 times more likely to have intraocular tuberculosis if TST alone was positive (p < 0.001) versus 2.19 times more likely if Quantiferon alone was positive (p = 0.04). Tuberculin skin testing showed superior specificity (60.3% vs 33.3%) (p = 0.001) but similar sensitivity (90.3% vs 85.7%), positive (54.9% vs 40.5%) and negative predictive values (92.1% vs 81.5%) compared to Quantiferon. Specificity did not increase significantly if both skin testing and Quantiferon were positive.Conclusions: In South Africa, with its high HIV burden and limited public health resources, Quantiferon testing should not replace tuberculin skin testing as it provides little additional diagnostic information.
Declaration of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.