Utility of a clinical scoring system in prioritizing TB investigations - a systematic review.

Utility of a clinical scoring system in prioritizing TB investigations - a systematic review. Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther. 2019 Jun 04;: Authors: Jensen SB, Rudolf F, Wejse C Abstract Introduction: Tuberculosis (TB) is among the ten most common causes of death worldwide and it is the leading cause of mortality in people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Clinical scoring systems have the potential to improve case finding and to prioritize patients for TB testing. Areas covered: This systematic review investigated the utility of prediction models to improve pulmonary tuberculosis (pTB) case finding. Studies were searched through PubMed until 15th of August 2018 and 20 studies were eligible according to the inclusion criteria. Data on study population, outcome measurements, predictors and performance were extracted. Many studies showed promising results but lacked external validation. Furthermore, head to head studies are needed to compare the different prediction models. Sensitivities of the prediction models ranged from 26-96% and specificities from 18-92%, negative likelihood rations (LR-) from 0.22-0.8 and LR+ 1.07-7.32. Composite scores including paraclinical measures added to sensitivity. Expert opinion: TB case finding is of utmost importance to advance the quest for global TB elimination, and simple measures to identify high risk populations or persons to undergo further diagnostic evaluation are highly needed. A number o...
Source: Expert Review of Anti-Infective Therapy - Category: Infectious Diseases Tags: Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther Source Type: research