Tuberculosis (TB) is an airborne disease and the transmission of TB occurs through the inhalation of droplets that are either coughed or sneezed from a person infected with active TB disease of the lung (known as active pulmonary TB). It is important to note that some individuals who become infected with the TB bacteria do not develop active TB disease.
QFT-Plus is a simple blood test that allows for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacteria that causes TB.
Compared with the Tuberculin Skin Test (TB skin test), QFT-Plus is an improvement in the accuracy of TB testing. QFT-Plus offers advantages such as:
- A higher sensitivity at >95.
- The highest specificity of any test for TB infection.
- Innovative CD8+ T cell technology.
As an enhanced version of QuantiFERON-TB Gold which had been the industry-leading Interferon Gamma Release Assay (IGRA) for TB detection, QFT-Plus uses the same principle, test procedures, and reliable technology as its predecessor, but is optimized with innovative tuberculosis-specific antigens that elicit both CD8+ and CD4+ T cell responses, ensuring a more precise assessment of cell-mediated immune response to TB infection. Additionally, unlike the TB skin test, QFT-Plus is unaffected by Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination.
As the subject of over 1,100 clinical and scientific studies, QuantiFERON technology offers the highest precision of any test for TB infection.