• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
• /
• v.23 no.1
• /
• pp.18-24
• /
• 2016

Purpose: There is a the great diagnostic challenge in pediatric tuberculosis especially in high burden setting. The purpose of this preliminary study is to evaluate the agreement between tuberculin skin test (TST) and interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) including T-SPOT$^{(R)}$.TB and QuantiFERON$^{(R)}$-TB Gold (QFT-G) in Korean children. Method: This retrospective study included children and adolescents who visited to Asan Medical Center to evaluate tuberculosis infection using at least two assays of TST, T-SPOT.TB and QFT-G, from January 2014 to April 2015. Results: A total of 20 patients were included, whose median age was 13.3 years (range, 3.8-18.1 years), and all of them had history of BCG vaccination. Eleven patients had underlying diseases including 7 patients with immunosuppressant medication. The concordance rate between T-SPOT.TB and QFT-G was 90%. However, the concordance rate between TST and T-SPOT.TB was 50%, and between TST and QFT-G was 42.9%. Specificity for the diagnosis of tuberculosis infection of T-SPOT.TB, QFT-G, and TST was 93.3%, 86.7%, and 58.3%, respectively. Conclusions: Although there was a discrepancy between TST and IGRA to diagnose tuberculosis, agreement between T-SPOT.TB and QFT-G was relatively high. Further prospective study to validate the clinical usefulness of each assay for immunologic evidence of tuberculosis infection in Korean children will be mandatory.