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New And Improved Blood Test For TB Developed

by Medindia Content Team on Sep 15 2006 4:19 PM

Scientists claimed to have developed a blood test for the efficient and swift detection of tuberculosis.The scientists from the St George's Hospital and the Medical Research Council National Institute for Medical Research team have stated that the test is 94% accurate. They further explained that the test watches out for biomarkers that usually indicate infection.

The current technique that is used for testing TB is for looking at a patient's sputum from the lungs under a microscope. The efficacy of this mode of diagnosis is said to deteriorate in rural areas of developing countries, which might render it only 40% to 60% accurate.

Dr Delmiro Fernandez-Reyes, of Medical Research Council National Institute for Medical Research, said, “Current developments in mass spectrometry together with new statistical methods for pattern discovery are allowing us to identify biomarkers of infection.” He further said, “Our work opens the door to further research into translating these findings to fast and reliable methods of detecting active TB infection that could have a major impact in global health.”

Professor Sanjeev Krishna of the Center for Infection at St George's Hospital also added, “The next stage will be to use the biomarkers we have identified to develop a cheap, accurate and rapid diagnostic test that can be used easily and quickly out in the field.”



Source-Medindia
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