Abstract
Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is a common infectious disease worldwide especially in developing countries. Diagnosis of TB is difficult and often needs paraclinical studies. Measuring immunoglobulin's against A-60 antigen of TB microorganism has been reported as a useful technique. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the diagnostic value of serologic test (IgA, IgM, IgG) against A-60 antigen in tuberculosis.
Patients and methods: For this case-control study, 176 TB patients (124 patients with smear-positive pulmonary TB and 52 patients with extra pulmonary TB) and 283 healthy controls were enrolled. Then, all subjects were tested for IgM, IgA and IgG against A-60 antigen using ELISA technique.
Results: Sensitivities of IgM, IgG and IgA test were 15%, 25% and 40%, respectively while the following specificities were also reported 100%, 75% and 90%, respectively. Positive predictive values (PPV) were 100%, 57% and 72%, however, negative predictive values (NPV) were 65%, 72% and 70%, respectively. Combination of immunoglobulins' results increased sensitivity, for which the most sensitivity was observed in combination of IgG and IgA results.
Conclusion: Our results revealed the usefulness of serologic testing in TB diagnosis. Although its sensitivity is not high enough, combination of immunoglobulin results may improve the sensitivity.
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Copyright
© 2008, Author(s). This open-access article is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which allows for unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.