Pre-immigration Screening for Tuberculosis in South Korea: A Comparison of Smear- and Culture-Based Protocols

Tuberculosis (TB) is the most important disease screened for upon patient history review during preimmigration medical examinations as performed in South Korea in prospective immigrants to certain Western countries. In 2007, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) changed the TB screening protocol from a smear-based test to the complete Culture and Directly Observed Therapy Tuberculosis Technical Instructions (CDOT TB TI) for reducing the incidence of TB in foreign-born immigrants.

This study evaluated the effect of the revised (as compared with the old) protocol in South Korea.

Of the 40,558 visa applicants, 365 exhibited chest radiographic results suggestive of active or inactive TB, and 351 underwent sputum tests (acid-fast bacilli smear and Mycobacterium tuberculosis culture). To this end, using the CDOT TB TI, 36 subjects (88.8 per 10⁵ of the population) were found to have TB, compared with only seven using the older U.S. CDC technical instruction (TI) (p<0.001). In addition, there were six drug-resistant cases which were identified (16.7 per 10⁵ of the population), two of whom had multidrug-resistance (5.6 per 10⁵ of the population).

The culture-based 2007 TI identified a great deal of TB cases current to the individuals tested, as compared to older U.S. CDC TI.