Performance of QuantiFERON TB gold test in detecting latent tuberculosis infection in brain-dead organ donors in Iran : a brief report

Abstract EN

With regard to the significant morbidity and mortality due to tuberculosis in lung transplant recipients, the identification of brain-dead organ donors with latent tuberculosis by use of the QuantiFERON TB Gold (QFT-G) test may be of help to reduce the risk of TB reactivation and mortality in lung recipients.

This study was conducted in the National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (NRITLD) in Iran, from January to March 2013.

A total of 38 consecutive brain-dead donors, not currently infected with active tuberculosis, were recruited.

The medical records of all the study enrollees were reviewed.

A whole-blood IFN-γ release assay (IGRA) in reaction to early secreted antigenic target 6 (ESAT-6), culture filtrate protein 10 (CFP-10), and TB7.7 antigens, was performed and the released Interferon-γ was measured via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

The data was analyzed with QFT-G software which was provided by the company.

The demographic, characteristics and other variables were entered into SPSS version 11.5.

The QFT-G test results of three donors (7.9 %) turned out to be positive, negative for 24 donors (63.1 %), and indeterminate for 11 cases (28.9 %).

Our study revealed the potential advantages of QFT-G in lowering the incidence of donor-derived post-transplant tuberculosis among lung recipients.

However, a high rate of indeterminate results restricted the performance of QFT-G in this study.