Premature TB detection blood test
Orlando / Wuhan: American and Chinese scientists have developed a blood test that can diagnose tuberculosis (TB) months before symptoms appear.
This test can also detect TB in young and old children, while traditional methods make it very difficult to diagnose.
Due to the diagnostic difficulties, TB is often diagnosed in children only when the germs of the disease have shown their effect and caused significant damage. The new test has solved this problem very well.
This test measures the amount of a protein in the blood called “CFP10”. Large amounts of this protein are excreted by the TB germ (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) and enter the bloodstream.
TB can be detected at a very early stage with a small amount of blood using the technique of mass spectroscopy.
According to a report published in the latest issue of the online research journal BMC Medicine, when the test tested 519 blood samples from children, its performance was 100% accurate.
Not only that, but in further trials, the test also diagnosed TB in 83.7% of children, even the best conventional tests that failed to detect TB. These children showed symptoms of TB about 60 weeks later.
Scientists are now developing a short and low-cost device for this blood test to provide better TB diagnostic facilities even in remote and backward areas.
It should be noted that TB is also among the 10 most deadly diseases in the world, while this disease has claimed 1.6 million human lives in 2020.
In 2019, the number of people infected with TB was more than 10 million, including 5.6 million men, 3.2 million women and 1.2 million children.
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