In the United States, 13 million individuals are believed to silently carry latent tuberculosis (TB) infection. Without treatment, they are at risk for developing active TB disease. The good news is that TB disease is preventable and curable. If TB infection is recognized early, doctors can provide effective preventive treatment. Over the past two decades, there has been a growing shift away from using the century-old tuberculin skin test towards the use of modern TB blood tests—known as interferon gamma release assays (IGRAs).
Today, IGRAs, such as QuantiFeron-TB Gold Plus, is the preferred test for the detection of latent TB infection (LTBI) in most national guidelines and are preferred by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for TB testing in most risk groups. Automated IGRA testing is now also possible using the Liaison QuantiFeron-TB Gold Plus test on the Liaison XL Analyzer. Liaison QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus is the first and only FDA-approved, fully-automated assay to aid in the detection of TB infection.
In this webinar produced by CLP and sponsored by Qiagen, you will learn:
- The importance of latent TB screening with an IGRA from the customer’s perspective
- The factors within the laboratory that supported an automated platform
- Results subsequent to the initiation of testing
