Items tagged with Diagnostics

ICMR's top research institute developing sputum-free tests for diagnosing TB (post)

ICMR's top tuberculosis research institute NIRT is in the process of developing and validating sputum-free tests using blood, stool, urine and saliva samples for diagnosing the disease.

Kenya unveils latest innovations to diagnose and treat TB (post)

-- Some of the new tools introduced include eight ultra-portable digital chest X-ray machines that are battery-operated.

-- The machines emit lower doses of radiation and can be packed into backpacks and so easily transported into the field.

Blood-based biomarkers as a promising tool for early detection of incipient TB in people living with HIV (post)

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one-quarter of the world's population is estimated to be infected by TB bacteria, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), which can cause tuberculosis (TB). Although it is preventable and curable, 1.5 million people die from the infectious lung disease each year. TB is also a leading cause of death for people living with HIV. Most people infected with TB bacteria remain in a stage of latent TB and never develop TB disease. However, about 5 to 15% of people with latent TB may develop active TB disease in the future and potentially spread it to others. As X-ray and CT diagnostics are too unspecific for early and accurate detection of subclinical TB disease, there are to date no diagnostic tools to assess TB disease activity in living patients during clinically latent TB or during a HIV/TB coinfection.

Experts weigh in on the potential of ultrasound for diagnosing TB in kids (post)

Tuberculosis (TB) is hard to diagnose in children, especially very young ones. This is because it is difficult for children to cough up the sputum required to perform the gold standard molecular TB test. Even if they do manage to cough up sputum, there may not be enough TB bacteria in it for a positive diagnosis since children’s sputum harbours fewer bugs than that of adults.

High rates of chronic hepatitis B and TB co-infection observed in nationally representative Quest Diagnostics study (post)

Analysis of nearly 23 million lab tests finds only 1 in 3 patients with latent tuberculosis were also tested for chronic hepatitis B, despite similar risk factors in patients

Findings heighten caution about use of tuberculosis therapies, which raise risk of liver injury in patients co-infected with chronic hepatitis B virus

Project aims to devise tests to accelerate TB eradication (post)

Rapid point-of-care tests could diagnose infected patients before they become severely ill and spread tuberculosis to others.

HIV test-and-treat reduces TB incidence in the community (post)

A large campaign in Uganda to ramp up HIV testing and immediate HIV treatment reduced the incidence of tuberculosis (TB) in the intervention communities by 27% after one year, underlining the potential impact of HIV-related investments on wider population health, investigators of the SEARCH study reported at the 24th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2022).

New test uses nanotechnology, artificial intelligence to diagnose TB in children (post)

A new blood test developed by Tulane University researchers combines nanotechnology with artificial intelligence to diagnose tuberculosis (TB) in children in instances when the deadly disease might otherwise go undetected, according to a study in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

Discover how AI is being used to detect TB (post)

• Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is causing a public health crisis and a health security threat.
• COVID-19 threatens to unravel years of progress in tuberculosis detection and treatments.
• But artificial intelligence (AI) is set to play a growing role in the diagnosis of tuberculosis and could outsmart this setback.