Effectiveness of TB-LAMP in diagnosis of tuberculosis among HIV-infected persons in Cameroon

The diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) is still challenging in primaryhealthcare settings particularly in people living with HIV (PLHIV).The Xpert MTB/RIF assay which is the point of care WHO recommended rapid diagnosis (WRD) test for TB diagnosis in PLHIV remains difficult to implement in resource limited settings.This study aimed to evaluate the performance of TB-LAMP test to diagnose TB in PLHIV.Over a 6-month period we conducted a retrospective study using 668 files of patients previous diagnosed for TB and HIV.Multivariate analysis was performed by R software to compare TB-LAMP test, Xpert MTB/Rif assay and Microscopy.Findings of the study revealed that TB-LAMP has a good sensitivity (80%, 95% CI: 68-89) and specificity (88%, 95% CI: 81-93) among HIV persons.Microscopy presented a sensitivity of 52% (95% CI: 39-64) and a specificity of 94% (95% CI: 89-98) while Xpert MTB/RIF has a sensitivity of 91% (95% CI: 81-96) and a specificity of 91% (95% CI: 85-95).There was no significant difference between TB-LAMP and Xpert MTB/RIF.The sensitivity (89%, 95% CI: 79-96) and specificity (98%, 95% CI: 92-100) of TB-LAMP in non-HIV persons were similar to those of PLHIV.TB-LAMP test displayed good performance among PLHIV and can be recommended for TB diagnosis in PLHIV.