Tuberculin skin test and ELISPOT/T. SPOT.TB in children and adolescents with juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

Background: There are controversies regarding the accuracy of the tuberculin skin test (TST) and methods based on the production of interferon gamma by sensitized T cells for the diagnosis of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) in pediatrics and immunosuppressed patients. Our objectives are to study TST and ELISPOT/T. SPOT.

The challenge of pediatric tuberculosis in face of new diagnostic techniques.

Objectives: To present an updated review concerning new assays for diagnosing tuberculosis based on in vitro interferon-gamma production by host T cells, and compare them with tuberculin skin test.

Methods: A literature review was carried out based on Medline and LILACS databases (2000-2008) searching for the following keywords: tuberculosis, interferon-gamma, quantiFERON, ELISPOT and T-SPOT.TB.

Discovery of a novel Mycobacterium tuberculosis lineage that is a major cause of tuberculosis in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The current study evaluated Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for genomic deletions. One locus in our panel of PCR targets failed to amplify in approximately 30% of strains. A single novel long sequence polymorphism (>26.