Diagnostic efficiency Diaskintest and Quantiferon test in comparison with the Mantoux test for active tuberculosis in children in Belarus

<b>Background:</b> With the advent of new methods of immunodiagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) in children in Belarus cases of unreasonable carrying out several skin tests at the same time. This resulted in an increased drug burden on the child and increased the cost of TB detection. <b>Methods:</b> The objects of the study were children with active TB, identified from 2007 to 2016. Data of 62 children with active TB were material for research. The sensitivity and the diagnostic significance of Diaskintest (DST), QuantiFERON test and Mantoux test was determined and analyzed according to the results of 136 samples that were conducted before the treatment. <b>Results:</b> Each of the 3 studied tests showed high sensitivity in active TB: positive results were Mantoux test in 84.0%, DST – in 88.9%, QuantiFERON test – in 87.5% of patients. There was no significant difference in this indicator (p&gt;0.05). Among the 19 patients who underwent 3 tests, the results completely coincided in 10 people (52.6%), of them in one child the results of all three samples were negative; in 50% cases, multidirectional results were obtained. DST and QuantiFERON test showed the same sensitivity (84.2%) and greater in comparison with the Mantoux test (57.9%; p&gt;0.05). <b>Conclusions:</b> The analysis of the results of ten years of work on the introduction into practice of DST and QuantiFERON test allows us to propose a new algorithm for the diagnosis of TB infection in different age groups of children. This algorithm will reduce by 40-50% the number of diagnostic tests and by 50% the purchase of tuberculin, as well as help practical health care in the detection of TB infection in children.