Detection of lipoarabinomannan-38kD-IgG in serum for the diagnosis of pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis

Objective To ascertain the value of lipoarabinomannan-38kD-IgG (LAM-38kD-IgG) determination in the diagnosis of smear negative pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis.Methods LAM-38kD-IgG in sera obtained from 57 patients with smear negative active pulmonary tuberculosis,52 patients with extrapumonary tuberculosis,32 patients smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis,29 patients with lung cancer and 33 healthy individuals were detected by dot immunogold filtration assay.Results The positive rate was 73.7% in smear negative pulmonary tuberculosis group and the positive rate was 71.2% in extrapulmonary tuberculosis group.The false positive rate was 31.0% in lung cancer group and 9.1% in healthy individuals group.Conclusion The results suggested that the LAM-38kD-IgG detection was a useful supplementary tool for the diagnosis of smear negative pulmonary tuberculosis and extrapulmonary tuberculosis.