[The clinical significance of serum tuberculosis specific antigen antibody in the diagnosis of tuberculosis].

OBJECTIVE:

To evaluate the significance of serum tuberculosis specific antigen (TB-SA) antibody detection in the diagnosis of tuberculosis.

METHODS:

TB-SA antibody in the serum samples from 829 cases of tuberculosis, 278 patients with non-tuberculosis lung diseases and 125 healthy volunteers were detected using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Tuberculosis was confirmed by clinical, bacteriology, X-ray examination and pathology studies.

RESULTS:

The sensitivity of TB-SA antibody in diagnosis of bacteriologically positive and negative pulmonary tuberculosis and extrapulmonary tuberculosis was 75.1% (272/362), 68.9% (226/328) and 71.2% (99/139), respectively; the combined sensitivity was 72.0% (597/829), and the specificity 82.1% (331/403). The relationship between the OD(405) of TB-SA antibody and PPD positivity showed no linear relationship, suggesting that BCG vaccination did not affect the value of serum TB-SA antibody.

CONCLUSION:

The results suggest that measurement of serum TB-SA is a relatively sensitive and specific method for the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of tuberculosis.