Comparison of interferon gamma and interferon gamma-inducible protein-10 secretion in HIV–tuberculosis patients

Abstract

Interferon gamma (IFNgamma)-based in-vitro assays have suboptimal sensitivity, especially in immunocompromised individuals, which emphasizes the need for alternative markers for tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis. We compared TB antigens-specific IFNgamma and IFNgamma-inducible protein-10 levels in culture of whole blood samples from HIV-TB patients. We report that IFNgamma-inducible protein-10 detects a greater number of HIV-TB cases than IFNgamma and suggest that IFNgamma-inducible protein-10 may be a better alternative marker for latent TB infection diagnosis among immunocompromised individuals.