CST is still in the educational phase in the US....
Just look at this episode.....
"DEAR DR. GOTT: I am an educator and am required by my school to have an annual tuberculosis skin test to see if I have a TB infection. I object to this and am at low risk for TB. The early skin test is a nuisance. Do I have any options?
DEAR READER: The Centers for Disease Control has recently recommended a blood analysis that should take the place of the traditional TB skin test.
The analysis, called QuantiFERON-TB Gold, was recently reviewed in “Internal Medicine Alert,”March 29, 2006.The review started with the following sentence:
“Tuberculin skin testing is a crude procedure, fraught with potential error at every step, from application to interpretation, and requires 2 visits to a health care provider. Its use has persisted, nonetheless, because it remained, until recently, the only means of detection of latent infection with (tuberculosis).”
The CDC states that the blood test can be used in all circumstances in which skin testing is now utilized. Such circumstances include investigation of people exposed to TB, screening of health care workers and certain professionals, and testing of immigrants from TB-prone countries.
This is good news for anyone who finds the skin test to be a nuisance and for professionals who are concerned about the lack of precision in the traditional Purified Protein Derivative (PPD) analysis.This information has yet to reach many health care workers (and policy makers), so be patient. But remember that you read about it here first.
