Performance of QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus for detection of latent tuberculosis infection in pregnant women living in a tuberculosis- and HIV-endemic setting

We evaluated the performance of QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus (QFT-Plus), which includes two Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigen formulations (TB1 and TB2), for detection of latent tuberculosis infection during pregnancy. Eight-hundred-twenty-nine Ethiopian pregnant women (5.9% HIV-positive) were tested with QFT-Plus, with bacteriological sputum analysis performed for women with clinically suspected tuberculosis and HIV-positive women irrespective of clinical presentation. QFT-Plus read-out was categorized according to the conventional cut-off (0.35 IU/ml) for both antigen formulations. In addition, we analysed the distribution of QFT-Plus results within a borderline zone (0.20–0.70 IU/ml), and i…