TY - JOUR T1 - Comparison of two commercial interferon-γ assays for diagnosing <em>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</em> infection JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 24 LP - 30 DO - 10.1183/09031936.06.00016906 VL - 28 IS - 1 AU - J. Y. Lee AU - H. J. Choi AU - I-N. Park AU - S-B. Hong AU - Y-M. Oh AU - C-M. Lim AU - S. D. Lee AU - Y. Koh AU - W. S. Kim AU - D. S. Kim AU - W. D. Kim AU - T. S. Shim Y1 - 2006/07/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/28/1/24.abstract N2 - The clinical usefulness of ex vivo interferon-γ assays may largely depend on the assay format and epidemiological status of tuberculosis (TB) in the region studied. From July 2004 to June 2005 a prospective comparison study was undertaken at a tertiary referral hospital in South Korea. The results of tuberculin skin tests (TST) and the commercially available QuantiFERON-TB Gold (QFT-G) and T SPOT-TB (SPOT) assays were compared in an intermediate TB-burden country. Of the 224 participants studied, results from all three tests (TST, QFT-G, and SPOT) were available in 218; 87 with active TB and 131 at a low risk for TB. Using 10 mm as a cut-off for TST, SPOT sensitivity (96.6%) was significantly higher than that seen for TST (66.7%) and QFT-G (70.1%). QFT-G showed superior specificity over TST (91.6 versus 78.6%). Although the specificity of QFT-G was higher than that of SPOT (91.6 versus 84.7%), the difference was not statistically significant. Whilst some differences were found in the performance of the two commercialised interferon-γ assays, they seemed to be superior in their detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection compared with tuberculin skin tests. The most appropriate choice of interferon-γ assay to use may depend on the clinical setting. ER -