BACKGROUND Interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) may improve diagnostic accuracy for latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI). This study compared the performance of the tuberculin skin test (TST) with that of IGRA for the diagnosis of LTBI in immunocompromised patients in an intermediate TB burden country where BCG vaccination is mandatory. METHODS We conducted a retrospective observational stud...

The differential diagnosis of tuberculous pleural effusion (TPE) and malignant pleural effusion (MPE) remains difficult despite the availability of numerous diagnostic tools. The current study aimed to evaluate the performance of the whole blood QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT-GIT) assay and conventional laboratory biomarkers in differential diagnosis of TPE and MPE in high tuberculosis preval...

BACKGROUND Approximately one-third of the world population is infected with M. tuberculosis and helminths (Kariminia et al. (2009), Walson et al. (2010)). Pregnancy and Helminth infection are known to suppress the TH1 response (Kariminia et al. (2009), Elias et al. (2006)) on which the QuantiFERON Gold in Tube (QFT-GIT) assay, that measures the released IFN-γ upon in vitro stimulation with myco...

NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) guidelines for new entrant tuberculosis (TB) screening recommend chest x ray (CXR) for immigrants from countries with TB incidence >40/10(5), and tuberculin skin test (TST) for people with normal CXR from very high TB prevalence countries. A revised screening policy using first-line QuantiFERON-TB Gold (QFT) in high risk immigrants wa...

We analyzed positive QuantiFERON (QFT) assays, performed between July 2009 and April 2011 in the Mercy University Hospital, Cork, Ireland, which included, 94 patients with latent tuberculosis (LTBI) and 35 patients with active tuberculosis. There was no difference in the intensity of response between patients with LTBI and active tuberculosis (p = 0.1589). In patients with LTBI, there were no c...

BACKGROUND Interferon-gamma release assays have emerged as a more specific alternative to the tuberculin skin test (TST) for detection of tuberculosis (TB) infection, especially in Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccinated people. We determined the prevalence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection by TST and QuantiFERON®-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT-GIT) and assessed agreement between the two test meth...

OBJECTIVE A contact examination conducted using the QuantiFERON-TB GOLD In-Tube (QFT-G-IT) assay shows a high positive rate independent of the closeness of contact. Among individuals with a short contact time of only 1.1 +/- 1.3 h with the index tuberculosis (TB) case, the QFT-G-IT assay positive rate was 13.9%, which was considered extraordinarily high (for reference, the proportion of previou...

This study aimed to estimate the risk of progression to active tuberculosis (TB) within 2 yrs after entry in newly arriving immigrants who were screened with the QuantiFERON®-TB Gold In-Tube assay (QFT-GIT; Cellestis, Carnegie, Australia). In a case-base design, we determined the prevalence QFT-GIT-positive subjects among a representative sample of immigrants aged ≥ 18 yrs who arrived between A...

Addressing Landauer’s question concerning the influence of static gate defects on quantum information processor performance, we investigate analytically and numerically the case of the quantum Fourier transform (QFT) with defective controlled rotation (CROT) gates. Two types of defects are studied, separately and in combination: systematic and random. Analytical scaling laws of QFT performance ...