Abstract:
OBJECTIVE To evaluate the values of smear acid-fast staining, mycobacterium culture, T-cell spot test for tuberculosis infection (T-SPOT.TB) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis/rifampicin resistance real-time fluorescent quantitative nucleic acid amplification detection technology (GeneXpert MTB/RIF), as well as their combined detection, in the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis.
METHODS The detection results of suspected pulmonary tuberculosis patients who simultaneously underwent acid-fast smear, mycobacterium culture, T-SPOT.TB and GeneXpert MTB/RIF tests at Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University from May 2021 to Jun. 2023 were collected. A total of 392 clinically confirmed pulmonary tuberculosis patients and 1 851 non-tuberculosis patients were included. With clinical diagnosis as the gold standard, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy of the aforementioned four methods and their combined detection were calculated, and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was plotted to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of the four methods alone or in combination in the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis.
RESULTS The sensitivities of acid-fast smear, mycobacterium culture, T-SPOT.TB and GeneXpert MTB/RIF detection were 13.01%, 53.83%, 91.84% and 57.65%, respectively. The specificities were 98.11%, 100.00%, 73.20% and 99.84%, respectively. The areas under the ROC curve (AUC) were 0.556, 0.769, 0.825 and 0.787, respectively. The detection sensitivity and AUC of T-SPOT.TB were both higher than those of the other three methods (P<0.05). The combined use of T-SPOT.TB and GeneXpert MTB/RIF yielded the highest AUC (0.847) (P<0.001).
CONCLUSIONS T-SPOT.TB exhibits high sensitivity and can be used for initial screening of pulmonary tuberculosis. GeneXpert MTB/RIF demonstrates high specificity and can serve as the preferred etiological diagnostic method for pulmonary tuberculosis. The combined detection of T-SPOT.TB and GeneXpert MTB/RIF contributes to improving the diagnostic efficacy of pulmonary tuberculosis.