Diagnostic significance of lipoarabinomannan antigen in pleural fluid for tuberculous pleurisy

Objective To investigate whether the determination of lipoarabinomannan(LAM) antigen in pleural fluid may be used as an indicator for the diagnosis of tuberculous pleurisy.Methods Double antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA) was performed to detect LAM antigen in 96 pleural fluid samples(46 patients with tuberculous pleurisy and 50 patients with non-tuberculous pleurisy).Results The positive rate of LAM antigen in pleural fluid with tuberculous pleurisy group was 54%,and the positive rate in pleural fluid with non-tuberculous pleurisy was 22%.There was a statistical difference between them(P0.05).Conclusions LAM antigen could be used as a new indicator for the diagnosis of tuberculous pleurisy.