Immunologic tests in diagnosis of tuberculosis infection in children of different age

<b>Introduction:</b> Early diagnosis of TB infection in children is complicated due to poor clinical signs, minor X-ray abnormalities, and absence of bacterial excression. Potential of Mantuox 2 TE test in population with common BCG vaccination is limited due to its low diagnostic specificity. Implementation of new immunologic tests allows improvement of early diagnosis of tuberculosis in children. <b>Objective of the study:</b> to compare revealing of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) and active tuberculosis in children with and without use of new immunologic tests (Diaskintest, T-SPOT). <b>Material and Methods:</b> We analized results of examination of 1300 children (1-14 years old) in St.-Petersburg within the period 2013-2017 BCG vaccinated and with positive results of Mantuox test. We divided children into two groups: children who were examined in the period 2013-2015 without new immunologic tests (Diaskintest, T-SPOT) in screening of TB (n= 654; I group) and II group – with the use of these tests, in the period 2016-2017 (n=646). The data analysis was performed with the use of the Stata 14 software. The differences between compared groups were considered significant at р-value&lt;0.05. <b>Results:</b> In the II group LTBI was diagnosed significantly higher than in the I group (68.4% (191) vs 32.9% (127), p&lt;0.05); while active TB in the II group was diagnosed significantly lower (31.5% (88) vs 67.1% (258), p&lt;0.01). Number of healthy children was higher in the II group (56.8% (367) vs 41.1% (269). <b>Conclusion:</b> The use of new immunologic tests in screening of TB improves early diagnosis of TB infection in children.