January 03, 2014
1 min read
Save

TB more likely in infants exposed to HIV-1

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Children of mothers with HIV-1 have an increased risk for tuberculosis, according to study results published in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.

Researchers used the T-Spot.TB interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA; Oxford Immunotec) to test 182 infants of mothers with HIV-1 infection. Mothers received a short course of zidovudine (Retrovir, ViiV Healthcare) at 32 weeks gestation to prevent mother-to-child transmission. Mother and infant pairs were assessed monthly for a year after birth. All infants received the bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccination.

The study results found that 10.9% (95% CI, 6.1-17.7) of infants tested positive for TB infection. Those who tested positive were more likely to have mothers with active TB (OR=15.5; 95% CI, 1.3-184). Infants with a positive assay result were more likely to have prolonged fever during the first 6 months of life. Seven percent of infants had HIV-1.

“Our study points to the need for increased clinical suspicion of TB disease in HIV-1 exposed infants and systematic contact screening to identify infants with TB infection who could benefit from [isoniazid preventive therapy]. In the future, IGRAs may be useful to define infant TB incidence, target provision of IPT, and guide diagnostic decision making. Optimizing cut-offs and determining predictive ability of infant IGRAs for active TB will be important to enhance utility of these assays among HIV-1 exposed infants,” study researcher Lisa M. Cranmer, MD, MPH, of the University of Washington, and colleagues concluded.

Disclosure: The study was supported by an NIH grant.The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.