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Q. Kindly advise me if my test is suggestive of TB infection.

Answered by

Dr. Rohit Jain

and medically reviewed by iCliniq medical review team.

This is a premium question & answer published on Feb 11, 2017

Patient's Query

Hi doctor,

During fitness examination I got know that I have bilateral apical pleural thickening in the chest x-ray, but neither in the past or current, I have any health complaints. So, the further investigation I did was PPD skin test and QuantiFERON TB gold test, which is positive 20 mm and 3.42 IU respectively. Kindly advised me if that is suggestive of TB infection. Do I need take anti-tubercular medicine? I am working right now in abroad. Can I prevent this from becoming active?

Answer

Dr. Rohit Jain

Cardiology Critical Care Physician Diabetology Endocrinology General Medicine Internal Medicine Pulmonology (Asthma Doctors) Sexology

#

Hi,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

I have gone through your case, and I am of the following opinion.

Your blood test and skin test are surely positive and are indicative of active tuberculosis. Your x-ray shows minimal pleural thickening, which shows past lesions.

Now the issue is that you might have had subclinical TB in the past, which you did not come to know. Also, the skin and blood test does not tell you that you have TB of lungs. You might have TB somewhere else, which we are missing on x-ray.

You should get a CT chest or a bronchoscopic biopsy to find out if there is TB of the lungs. Then, get an ultrasound of abdomen done to look for intestinal TB. Since QuantiFERON is positive, we cannot simply neglect it. It might be false, but still, we need to investigate.

Medicines will be needed once we find out if there is an active lesion.

For further information consult a cardiologist online -->https://www.icliniq.com/ask-a-doctor-online/cardiologist

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