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Development and evaluation of new diagnostic markers of tuberculosis in children

Tuberculosis in the number one infectious cause of death worldwide, but remains underappreciated as a cause of mortality in children and difficult to diagnose. Diagnostic difficulties of TB in children are a consequence of the non-specific clinical presentation, the different spectrum of disease in children and the paucibacillary nature of disease making microbiological confirmation challenging in many cases. Moreover, existing immunodiagnostic tests have important limitations, especially with regard to childhood TB: they lack sensitivity to rule out TB, and are unable to offer discrimination between contained infection and active stages of disease. Their limitations are emphasized in the youngest children that are at greatest risk of developing severe disseminated forms of TB. For that reason we developed, at the Laboratory of Vaccinology and Mucosal Immunity (LoVMI), several non-sputum based tests, that offer excellent diagnostic accuracy compared to commercialy available tests, for all forms of TB in children, in an early stage of infection. This research also provided insight in TB pathogenesis. The main results are summarized in a table (chapter General Discussion) and two algoritms (chapter Conclusions and Perspectives). / Doctorat en Sciences médicales (Médecine) / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ulb.ac.be/oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/312223
Date03 September 2020
CreatorsDreesman, Alexandra
ContributorsMascart, Françoise, Velkeniers, Brigitte, Allard, Sabine D, Casimir, Georges, Smeesters, Pierre, Moutschen, Michel, Pierard, Denis, Aerts, Joeri, Kampmann, Beate
PublisherUniversite Libre de Bruxelles, VUB, Geneeskunde en Farmacie - Doctor in de medische wetenschappen, Université libre de Bruxelles, Faculté de Médecine – Médecine, Bruxelles
Source SetsUniversité libre de Bruxelles
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, info:ulb-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, info:ulb-repo/semantics/openurl/vlink-dissertation
Format3 full-text file(s): application/pdf | application/pdf | application/pdf
Rights3 full-text file(s): info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess | info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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