TY  - JOUR
A1  - Herzmann, Christian
A1  - Sotgiu, Giovanni
A1  - Bellinger, Oswald
A1  - Diel, Roland
A1  - Gerdes, Silke
A1  - Götsch, Udo
A1  - Heykes‑Uden, Helga
A1  - Schaberg, Tom
A1  - Lange, Christoph
T1  - Risk for latent and active tuberculosis in Germany
T2  - Infection
N2  - Purpose: Few individuals that are latently infected with M. tuberculosis latent tuberculosis infection(LTBI) progress to active disease. We investigated risk factors for LTBI and active pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) in Germany.
Methods: Healthy household contacts (HHCs), health care workers (HCWs) exposed to M. tuberculosis and PTB patients were recruited at 18 German centres. Interferon-γ release assay (IGRA) testing was performed. LTBI risk factors were evaluated by comparing IGRA-positive with IGRA-negative contacts. Risk factors for tuberculosis were evaluated by comparing PTB patients with HHCs.
Results: From 2008–2014, 603 HHCs, 295 HCWs and 856 PTBs were recruited. LTBI was found in 34.5% of HHCs and in 38.9% of HCWs. In HCWs, care for coughing patients (p = 0.02) and longstanding nursing occupation (p = 0.04) were associated with LTBI. In HHCs, predictors for LTBI were a diseased partner (odds ratio 4.39), sexual contact to a diseased partner and substance dependency (all p < 0.001). PTB was associated with male sex, low body weight (p < 0.0001), alcoholism (15.0 vs 5.9%; p < 0.0001), glucocorticoid therapy (7.2 vs 2.0%; p = 0.004) and diabetes (7.8 vs. 4.0%; p = 0.04). No contact developed active tuberculosis within 2 years follow-up.
Conclusions: Positive IGRA responses are frequent among exposed HHCs and HCWs in Germany and are poor predictors for the development of active tuberculosis.
KW  - LTBI
KW  - Incidence
KW  - Diabetes mellitus
KW  - IGRA
KW  - Health care workers
KW  - Household contacts
Y1  - 2016
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/45554
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-455540
SN  - 1439-0973
SN  - 0300-8126
N1  - Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
VL  - 45
IS  - 3
SP  - 283
EP  - 290
PB  - Urban & Vogel ; Springer
CY  - München ; Berlin ; Heidelberg
ER  -