Abstract: 【Abstract】 Objective To evaluate the in-vitro Interferon-Gamma Release Assay T-SPOT.TB for the Diagnosis of Tuberculosis . Methods The peripheral blood mononuclear cells(PBMC) were collected from the patients with tuberculosis(tuberculosis group,n=36) ,patients with extrapulmonary tuberculosis,( extrapulmonary tuberculosis group,n=18),and healthy controls(healthy control group,n=31).The PBMCs were co-cultured with different antigens: ESAT-6 and CFP-10.The levels of interferon-Gamma were detected by ELISPOT ,and the results were compared to those with tuberculin skin test(TST)、TB-AB、ESR and ADA. Results The T-SPOT.TB assay showed positive results in 46 patients with tuberculosis and the sensitivity was 92.6%. There was significant difference of the T-SPOT.TB results in patients with tuberculosis and healthy controls, and the same in patients with extrapulmonary tuberculosis and healthy controls（P＜0.05）. There was no significant difference of the T-SPOT.TB results in patients with tuberculosis and patients with extrapulmonary tuberculosis（P＞0.05）. There was no significant difference of the TST results among the three groups(P＞0.05).The specificity of T-SPOT.TB(93.5%) was higher than TST(54.8%) in healthy controls, the difference was significant（P＜0.05）. The levels of TB-AB、ESR and ADA was higher in patients with tuberculosis and patients with extrapulmonary tuberculosis than in healthy controls, the difference was significant（P＜0.05）.Conclusions The T-SPOT.TB has highly specificity in diagnosis of tuberculosis and is better than TST. the significance is higher if combined T-SPOT.TB with TB-AB、ESR and ADA .

Key words: interferon-Gamma, release assay, T-SPOT.TB, Tuberculosis