Rapid blood tests used by the NHS are unable to rule out tuberculosis (TB) and should be replaced with a new, more accurate test, a study has found. In the largest study to date of rapid TB tests used by the NHS, a team led by researchers at Imperial College London found that available tests are not sensitive enough to rule out a diagnosis of TB in suspected cases, and so have limited clinical use. The research, published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, also looked at a new second generation rapid blood test, developed at Imperial, and found it to be substantially more accurate than the existing tests.
According to the team, once implemented the new test could enable doctors to quickly detect or rule out TB infection and help them to distinguish patients who need further investigation and treatment from those who do not and pose no infectious risk to others. The Professor of…
