Combining urine lipoarabinomannan with antibody detection as a simple non-sputum-based screening method for HIV-associated tuberculosis.

Background: Simple methods for the accurate triaging and screening of HIV-associated tuberculosis (TB) are urgently needed. We hypothesized that combining serum antibody with urine lipoarabinomannan (U-LAM) detection can improve the detection of HIV-associated TB.

Methods: We performed a case-control study with sampling from a prospective study of South African HIV-infected subjects who were screened for TB prior to initiating antiretroviral therapy.