[Research agenda of interferon-gamma release assays]

Recently, new diagnostic tests for tuberculosis infection that are more specific than tuberculin skin tests have been developed and have become commercially available. These tests determine interferon-gamma production after stimulation with M. tuberculosis-specific antigens, ESAT-6 and CFP-10, and are named Interferon-Gamma Release Assays (IGRA). Currently, two IGRA formats are available. One is QuantiFERON TB-2G (QFT-2G, called Quanti FERON-TB Gold outside Japan), which uses the whole blood and has been approved as a diagnostic test for tuberculosis infection in Japan. The use of QFT-2G was recommended for contact investigations in the revised guidelines in 2006. The other format of IGRA is T-SPOT.TB (T-SPOT), which uses peripheral blood mononuclear cells. T-SPOT has not yet been approved in Japan. IGRA was developed just recently, so there are many research questions to be addressed. In 2007, Pai et al. reported a comprehensive research agenda on IGRA). We introduced a review of Pai et al. in Japanese with reference to our published reports. The references in the review of Pai et al. appear as they are, and our new references are numbered with Roman numerals.