Clinical application of T cell enzyme-linked immunospot assay in tuberculosis patients
LU Jianhong1,CHEN Guojun1,DU Kaiqi2,DONG Changlin1,YANG Yong1,and JIN Yijun1.
1.Department of Laboratory, 2.Depatrtment of Thoracic Surgery. Jiaxing Hospital of Zhejiang Provincial Corps, Chinese People’s Armed Police Forces,Jiaxing 314000,China
Abstract：Objective To investigate the diagnostic value of T cell enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assay in tuberculosis patients. Methods 103 patients with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection and 30 controls with non-MTB infection were recruited to detect early secreting antigen target-6(ESAT-6) and culture filtrate protein-10(CFP-10) specific T cells in blood samples by ELISPOT assay, then compare it with serum tuberculosis antibody(TB-Ab) and PPD skin test. Results The sensitivity, specificity, positive prospective value, negative prospective value, positive likelihood ratio and negative likelihood ratio of T cell ELISPOT assay were 95.15%, 93.33%, 98.00%, 84.85 %, 14.27% , and 0.05%, respectively. All these indexes were significantly higher than those of TB-Ab and PPD skin test(P<0.01), meanwhile T cell ELISPOT assay had low agreement with means of TB-Ab and PPD skin test(Kappa＜0.40, P<0.001). Conclusions T cell ELISPOT assay has a higher sensitivity and specificity than conventional test in the diagnosis of tuberculosis; therefore,it has great value and applicability as a screening test.
2013, Vol. 24 
