Cited by 191Tuberculosis Research and EpidemiologyInfectious Diseases and TuberculosisDiagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis

Tuberculosis Diagnostics and Biomarkers: Needs, Challenges, Recent Advances, and Opportunities

Open access
McNerney, Ruth, Maeurer, Markus, Abubakar, Ibrahim, Marais, Ben, Mchugh, Timothy D., Ford, Nathan, Weyer, Karin, Lawn, Steve +22 more·2012·The Journal of Infectious Diseases

Abstract

Tuberculosis is unique among the major infectious diseases in that it lacks accurate rapid point-of-care diagnostic tests. Failure to control the spread of tuberculosis is largely due to our inability to detect and treat all infectious cases of pulmonary tuberculosis in a timely fashion, allowing continued Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission within communities. Currently recommended gold-standard diagnostic tests for tuberculosis are laboratory based, and multiple investigations may be necessary over a period of weeks or months before a diagnosis is made. Several new diagnostic tests have recently become available for detecting active tuberculosis disease, screening for latent M. tuberculosis infection, and identifying drug-resistant strains of M. tuberculosis. However, progress toward a robust point-of-care test has been limited, and novel biomarker discovery remains challenging. In the absence of effective prevention strategies, high rates of early case detection and subsequent cure are required for global tuberculosis control. Early case detection is dependent on test accuracy, accessibility, cost, and complexity, but also depends on the political will and funder investment to deliver optimal, sustainable care to those worst affected by the tuberculosis and human immunodeficiency virus epidemics. This review highlights unanswered questions, challenges, recent advances, unresolved operational and technical issues, needs, and opportunities related to tuberculosis diagnostics.

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Crossref · 10.1093/infdis/jir860

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  • Availability issues, such as geographical constraints, resource shortages, or long waiting times, can cause significant diagnostic errors even when specific tests exist.

    “Second, availability issues, such as geographical constraints, resource shortages, or long waiting times, can cause significant diagnostic errors even when specific tests exist [189,190].”

    From Toward Safer Diagnoses: A SEIPS-Based Narrative Review of Diagnostic Errors (2026) · cites this paper as [189]

    In “The Need for More Accurate and Rapid Diagnostics” (page not provided), the paper says that tests can be beyond patients’ reach and that limited facilities and diagnostic delays leave tuberculosis cases undetected. “Dilemmas and Priorities for the Future” also describes access problems when services are centralized. These passages support the availability concern, but do not specifically establish that it causes significant diagnostic errors, as opposed to delays or missed diagnoses. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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1 of the 85 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. Lin HH, Langley I, Mwenda R, et al. A modelling framework to support the selection and implementation of new tuberculosis diagnostic tools. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis 2011; 15:996-1004.
  2. Squire SB, Ramsay AR, van den Hof S, et al. Making innovations accessible to the poor through implementation research. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis 2011; 15:862-70.
  3. Nicol MP, Workman L, Isaacs W, et al. A descriptive study of the accuracy of the Xpert MTB/RIF test for diagnosis of pulmonary tu- berculosis in hospitalized children in a high HIV prevalence area. Lancet Infect Dis 2011; 11:819-24.
  4. Marais S, Pepper DJ, Marais BJ, Torok ME. HIV-associated tubercu- lous meningitisddiagnostic and therapeutic challenges. Tuberculosis (Edinb) 2010; 90:367-74.

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Authors
McNerney, R., Maeurer, M., Abubakar, I., Marais, B., Mchugh, T. D., Ford, N., Weyer, K., Lawn, S., Grobusch, M. P., Memish, Z., Squire, S. B., Pantaleo, G., Chakaya, J., Casenghi, M., Migliori, G.-B., Mwaba, P., Zijenah, L., Hoelscher, M., Cox, H., Swaminathan, S., Kim, P. S., Schito, M., Harari, A., Bates, M., Schwank, S., O’Grady, J., Pletschette, M., Ditui, L., Atun, R., & Zumla, A.
Affiliations
  • London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (GB)
  • Karolinska Institutet (SE)
  • University of East Anglia (GB)
  • The University of Sydney (AU)
  • University College London (GB)
  • Médecins Sans Frontières (ZA)
  • World Health Organization (CH)
  • University of Cape Town (ZA)
  • Amsterdam UMC Location University of Amsterdam (NL)
  • Alfaisal University (SA)
  • Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (GB)
  • Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CH)
  • Kenya Medical Research Institute (KE)
  • Ministry of Health (ZM)
  • University of Zimbabwe (ZW)
  • National Institute of Research in Tuberculosis (IN)
  • National Institutes of Health (US)
  • Henry M. Jackson Foundation (US)
  • University of Zambia (ZM)
  • European Commission (BE)
  • Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (CH)
Corresponding author
McNerney, Ruth
Venue
The Journal of Infectious Diseases
Published
2012-05-15
Volume
205
Issue
suppl_2
Pages
S147-S158
ISSN
  • 0022-1899 (ISSN-L)
  • 1537-6613
OpenAlex
W2145481449
Cited by
191
References
85
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 23 · 2014: 21 · 2013: 36 · 2012: 12
FWCI
3.67
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
other-oa
Locations
  • The Journal of Infectious Diseases (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Pure Amsterdam UMC (publishedVersion)
  • SERVAL (Université de Lausanne) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • NIRT Institutional Scholarship Repository (National Institute of Research in Tuberculosis) (acceptedVersion)
  • reroDoc Digital Library (submittedVersion)
  • IRIS (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
  • LSTM Online Archive (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine) (submittedVersion)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
  • Medecins Sans Frontieres Field Research (Medecins Sans Frontieres) (submittedVersion)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • UEA Digital Repository (University of East Anglia) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • University College London
  • UBS Optimus Foundation
  • University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
  • Medical Research Council
  • European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › Tuberculosis Research and Epidemiology
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Surgery › Infectious Diseases and Tuberculosis
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Surgery › Diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis
Keywords
tuberculosis diagnosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, biomarkers, point-of-care testing, latent tuberculosis infection, drug-resistant tuberculosis, early case detection, tuberculosis control
MeSH terms
Antitubercular Agents, Bacteriological Techniques, Humans, Tuberculosis, Biomarkers, Drug Resistance, Bacterial

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