TB Screening Tools

Screening for active tuberculosis (TB) should be done with a tool that:

• Effectively identifies people who probably have active TB
• Has high sensitivity (very high specificity is not necessary for a screening tool)
• Needs to be inexpensive
• Should be feasible to use in a given setting
• Is acceptable to a given risk group.

Options for the screening for TB include:

1. Screening for symptoms: Screening either for cough lasting for longer than 2 weeks, or screening for any symptom compatible with TB, including cough of any duration, haemoptysis, weight loss, fever or night sweats.
2. Screening with chest radiography: Often used as a second screen to improve the pre-test probability of the subsequent diagnostic test, and to reduce the number of people who need to undergo further diagnostic evaluation.

If the screening test like chest X-ray is positive, then such patients are sent for TB diagnostic tests. This can be either sputum-smear microscopy or a rapid molecular test that has been demonstrated to have high accuracy for both smear-positive and smear-negative pulmonary TB, such as the CBNAAT test, or further culture and drug-susceptibility testing, as is required.

Resources

• Systematic Screening for Active Tuberculosis; Principles and Recommendations, WHO 2013.

Kindly provide your valuable feedback on the page to the link provided HERE