Potential of interferon-γ-inducible protein 10 in improving tuberculosis diagnosis in HIV-infected patients

Potential of interferon-c-inducible protein 10 in improving tuberculosis diagnosis in HIV-infected patientsTo the Editors:In patients latently infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, immunosuppression significantly augments the risk of progression to active tuberculosis (TB) and TB is still one of the most frequent opportunistic infections worldwide.Prevention of TB in HIV-positive patients using the tuberculin skin testing (TST) followed by targeted preventive treatment is an effective strategy, but has thus far shown limited clinical success, in part due to the lack of a reliable test for latent TB infection (LTBI) [1].Interferon (IFN)-c release assays (IGRAs) have shown great potential in the improvement of LTBI diagnosis, but the tests perform suboptimally in immunocompromised populations.We and others have previously shown that HIV-positive patients have high rates of indeterminate QuantiFERON1-TB Gold In-Tube test (QFT-IT) results and that this, at least in part, is due to low CD4 T-cell count [2][3][4].