ArticleClinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America2019
What if They Don't Have Tuberculosis? The Consequences and Trade-offs Involved in False-positive Diagnoses of Tuberculosis.
Article in Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- New Tuberculosis Infection and Reactivation of Tuberculosis in Patients with Psoriasis or Psoriatic Arthritis Receiving IL-23 Inhibitors: A Systematic Literature Review.Dermatology and therapy · 2026Pooled it
- A Systematic Review of Chronic Pulmonary Aspergillosis Among Patients Treated for Pulmonary Tuberculosis.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2025Pooled it
- Parallel use of low-complexity automated nucleic acid amplification tests and lateral flow urine lipoarabinomannan assays to detect tuberculosis disease in adults and adolescents living with HIV.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2025Pooled it
- ITARA research programme: Investigating Integrated Tuberculosis And Respiratory care in Africa using transdisciplinary methods.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Interferon gamma release assay and sputum GeneXpert positivity for tuberculosis burden detection in people deprived of liberty in Brazil: a cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2026Article
- A multiplex assay based on capillary electrophoresis to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex: development and clinical validation.Applied microbiology and biotechnology · 2026Article
- Estimating the number of incorrect tuberculosis diagnoses in low- and middle-income countries.Nature medicine · 2026Article
- Do no harm - re-evaluating the risks of overtreatment in community-wide tuberculosis screening.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Performance of chest X-ray with computer-aided detection powered by deep learning-based artificial intelligence for tuberculosis presumptive identification during case finding in the Philippines.BMC global and public health · 2025Article
- Mind the Clinic-Community Gap: Re-evaluation of Test Performance and False Positive Results in Community-Wide Tuberculosis Screening.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Informing People-Centered Target Product Profiles for TB Diagnostics: A Multi-Country Qualitative Study.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- High Mortality Rates Among Individuals Misdiagnosed With Tuberculosis: A Matched Retrospective Cohort Study of Individuals Diagnosed With Tuberculosis in Brazil.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Post-tuberculosis lung disease: towards prevention, diagnosis, and care.The Lancet. Respiratory medicine · 2025Review
- Evaluating the impact of decentralized testing for tuberculosis in Ghana: A simulation model.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Assessment of comorbidities, risk factors, and post tuberculosis lung disease in National Tuberculosis Guidelines: A scoping review.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Potential impact, costs, and benefits of population-wide screening interventions for tuberculosis in Viet Nam: A mathematical modelling study.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Evaluation of the STANDARD M10 MDR-TB and MTB/NTM assays for the detection ofJournal of clinical microbiology · 2024Article
- Silicotuberculosis: a critical narrative review.European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society · 2024Review
- Tuberculosis Is Associated with Chronic Hypoxemia among Kenyan Adults (CHAKA): A Case-Control Study.Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2024Article
- Accuracy of chest x-ray screening of silica-exposed miners for tuberculosis.Occupational medicine (Oxford, England) · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
To find the millions of missed tuberculosis (TB) cases, national TB programs are under pressure to expand TB disease screening and to target populations with lower disease prevalence. Together with imperfect performance and application of existing diagnostic tools, including empirical diagnosis, broader screening risks placing individuals without TB on prolonged treatment. These false-positive diagnoses have profound consequences for TB patients and prevention efforts, yet are usually overlooked in policy decision making. In this article we describe the pathways to a false-positive TB diagnosis, including trade-offs involved in the development and application of diagnostic algorithms. We then consider the wide range of potential consequences for individuals, households, health systems, and reliability of surveillance data. Finally, we suggest practical steps that the TB community can take to reduce the frequency and potential harms of false-positive TB diagnosis and to more explicitly assess the trade-offs involved in the screening and diagnostic process.
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