Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Dec:101:235-242.
doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.09.1452. Epub 2020 Oct 9.

Effect of pregnancy and HIV infection on detection of latent TB infection by Tuberculin Skin Test and QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube assay among women living in a high TB and HIV burden setting

Mahlet Birku  1 , Girmay Desalegn  2 , Getachew Kassa  3 , Aster Tsegaye  4 , Markos Abebe  5
Affiliations

Effect of pregnancy and HIV infection on detection of latent TB infection by Tuberculin Skin Test and QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube assay among women living in a high TB and HIV burden setting

Mahlet Birku et al. Int J Infect Dis. 2020 Dec.

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the effect of pregnancy and Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection on detection performances of tuberculin skin test (TST) and QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube (QFTGIT) for the diagnosis of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) among women living in high TB and HIV endemic setting.

Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among women with and without pregnancy and HIV infection. Three-hundred twenty women were enrolled in this study and were diagnosed using TST and QFTGIT for the detection of LTBI.

Results: Overall prevalence of LTBI among the enrolled women was 55.6%, 46.3% and 51.1% as determined by TST, QFTGIT and concordant TST/QFTGIT results, respectively. Our study revealed that pregnancy or HIV infection reduced the rate of detection of LTBI by TST and QFTGIT tests, with the utmost effect observed in HIV-positive pregnant women. Additionally, we observed that the concordance between TST and QFTGIT among women increased with the presence of pregnancy and/or HIV infection. A history of contact with TB patients was significantly associated with positivity of TST and QFTGIT.

Conclusion: This study demonstrated that both pregnancy and HIV infection profoundly affected the detection performance of TST and QFTGIT, which may be associated with immunosuppression of anti-mycobacterial immunity in women with pregnancy and/or HIV infection.

Keywords: Detection rate; HIV; Latent TB infection; M. tuberculosis; Pregnancy; QFTGIT; TST.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Flow chart of the recruitment and enrollment of participants in this study.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Rate of detection of LTBI as assessed by TST, QFTGIT and TST/QFTGIT test results. The proportion of women who tested positive by TST (A), QFTGIT (B), and both TST and QFTGIT (C) among study participants in each group. Chi-square (χ2) was calculated to compare the detection rate of LTBI between the groups and p-values were determined. HIV+= HIV positive, HIV−= HIV negative, P= Pregnant and NP= Non-pregnant.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Rate of detection of LTBI as assessed by TST, QFTGIT and TST/QFTGIT test results. The proportion of women who tested positive by TST (A), QFTGIT (B), and both TST and QFTGIT (C) among study participants in each group. Chi-square (χ2) was calculated to compare the detection rate of LTBI between the groups and p-values were determined. HIV+= HIV positive, HIV−= HIV negative, P= Pregnant and NP= Non-pregnant.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. World Health Organization (2019). Global Tuberculosis Report 2019. Geneva, Switzerland: Available at: https://www.who.int/tb/publications/global_report/en/.
    1. Jonsson J, Kühlmann-Berenzon S, Berggren I, Bruchfeld J. Increased risk of active tuberculosis during pregnancy and postpartum: a register-based cohort study in Sweden. European Respiratory Journal. 2020;55(3). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Birku M, Desalegn G, Kassa G, Tegbaru B, Howe R, Tsegaye A, et al. Pregnancy suppresses Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific Th1, but not Th2, cell-mediated functional immune responses during HIV/latent TB co-infection. Clinical Immunology. 2020:108523. - PubMed
    1. Amelio P, Portevin D, Hella J, Reither K, Kamwela L, Lweno O, et al. HIV infection functionally impairs Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific CD4 and CD8 T-cell responses. Journal of virology. 2019;93(5):e01728–18. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mofenson LM, Laughon BE. Human immunodeficiency virus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and pregnancy: a deadly combination. The University of Chicago Press; 2007. - PubMed

MeSH terms