Intestinal Research

Original Articles

Infection

Interferon-gamma release assay has poor diagnostic accuracy in differentiating intestinal tuberculosis from Crohn’s disease in tuberculosis endemic areas: Karan Sachdeva, Peeyush Kumar, Bhaskar Kante, Sudheer K. Vuyyuru, Srikant Mohta, Mukesh K. Ranjan, Mukesh K. Singh, Mahak Verma, Govind Makharia, Saurabh Kedia, Vineet Ahuja; Intest Res 2023;21(2):226-234. Published online June 13, 2022; DOI: https://doi.org/10.5217/ir.2022.00010

Background/Aims
Intestinal tuberculosis (ITB) and Crohn’s disease (CD) frequently present with a diagnostic dilemma because of similar presentation. Interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) has been used in differentiating ITB from CD, but with sparse reports on its diagnostic accuracy in tuberculosis endemic regions and this study evaluated the same.
Methods
Patients with definitive diagnosis of ITB (n=59) or CD (n=49) who underwent IGRA testing (n=307) were retrospectively included at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi (July 2014 to September 2021). CD or ITB was diagnosed as per standard criteria. IGRA was considered positive at >0.35 IU/mL. Relevant data was collected and IGRA results were compared between ITB and CD to determine its accuracy.
Results
Among 59 ITB patients (mean age, 32.6±13.1 years; median disease duration, 1 year; male, 59.3%), 24 were positive and 35 tested negative for IGRA. Among 49 CD patients (mean age, 37.8±14.0; median disease duration, 4 years; male, 61.2%), 12 were positive and 37 tested negative for IGRA. Hence, for diagnosing ITB, IGRA showed a sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of 40.68%, 75.51%, 66.67%, and 51.39%, respectively. The area under the curve of IGRA for ITB diagnosis was 0.66 (95% confidence interval, 0.55–0.75). In a subset (n=64), tuberculin skin test (TST) showed sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of 64.7%, 73.3%, 73.3%, and 64.71%, respectively. IGRA and TST were concordant in 38 (59.4%) patients with κ=0.17.
Conclusions
In a tuberculosis endemic region, IGRA had poor diagnostic accuracy for differentiating ITB from CD, suggesting a limited value of IGRA in this setting.

Citations

Citations to this article as recorded by

ECCO consensus on management of inflammatory bowel disease in low- and middle-income countries
Alaa El-Hussuna, Almuthe Christina Hauer, Tarkan Karakan, Valerie Pittet, Henit Yanai, Jalpa Devi, Jesus K Yamamoto-Furusho, Ali Reza Sima, Hailemichael Desalegn, Mutaz Idrees Sultan, Vishal Sharma, Hany Shehab, Lamya Mrabti, Natalia Queiroz, Anuraag Jena
Journal of Crohn’s and Colitis.2026;[Epub] CrossRef
Mistakes to avoid in the management of abdominal tuberculosis
Abhirup Chatterjee, Daya Krishna Jha, Aravind Sekar, Vishal Sharma
Expert Review of Anti-infective Therapy.2025; 23(2-4): 197. CrossRef
Interferon-Gamma Release Assays Versus Tuberculin Skin Test for Active Tuberculosis Diagnosis: A Systematic Review and Diagnostic Meta-Analysis
Muhammad Abubaker Tobaiqi, Musleh Naser Alshamrani, Shyamkumar Sriram, Ahmad Bakur Mahmoud, Hammad Ali Fadlalmola, Muayad Albadrani
Diagnostics.2025; 15(18): 2343. CrossRef
An Updated Review on Differential Diagnosis of Crohn's Disease and Intestinal Tuberculosis
Ravi K Sharma, Alpa Singh, Saurabh Dawra
Journal of Postgraduate Medicine, Education and Research.2025; 60(1): 18. CrossRef
New diagnostic strategies to distinguish Crohn's disease and gastrointestinal tuberculosis
Himanshu Narang, Saurabh Kedia, Vineet Ahuja
Current Opinion in Infectious Diseases.2024; 37(5): 392. CrossRef
Interferon-gamma release assays as a tool for differential diagnosis of gastrointestinal tuberculosis
Tsvetelina Velikova, Anita Aleksandrova
World Journal of Clinical Cases.2024; 12(27): 6015. CrossRef
Diagnostic yield and technical performance of the novel motorized spiral enteroscopy compared with single-balloon enteroscopy in suspected Crohn's disease: a prospective study (with video)
Partha Pal, Piyush Vishwakarma, Aniruddha Pratap Singh, Palle Manohar Reddy, Mohan Ramchandani, Rupa Banerjee, Anuradha Sekaran, Polina Vijayalaxmi, Hardik Rughwani, Pradev Inavolu, Santosh Darishetty, Pradeep Rebala, Guduru Venkat Rao, Manu Tandan, D. Na
Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.2023; 97(3): 493. CrossRef
Evidence-based approach to diagnosis and management of abdominal tuberculosis
Daya Krishna Jha, Mythili Menon Pathiyil, Vishal Sharma
Indian Journal of Gastroenterology.2023; 42(1): 17. CrossRef
Technical performance and diagnostic yield of motorised spiral enteroscopy compared with single-balloon enteroscopy in suspected Crohn’s disease: a randomised controlled, open-label study (the MOTOR-CD trial)
Partha Pal, Mohan Ramchandani, Rupa Banerjee, Piyush Viswakarma, Aniruddha Pratap Singh, Manohar Reddy, Hardik Rughwani, Rajendra Patel, Anuradha Sekaran, Swathi Kanaganti, Santosh Darisetty, Zaheer Nabi, Jagadish Singh, Rajesh Gupta, Sundeep Lakhtakia, R
Gut.2023; 72(10): 1866. CrossRef

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Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Prospective validation of CD4⁺CD25⁺FOXP3⁺ T-regulatory cells as an immunological marker to differentiate intestinal tuberculosis from Crohn’s disease: Ritika Rampal, Saurabh Kedia, Mohamad Nahidul Wari, Deepak Madhu, Amit Kumar Singh, Veena Tiwari, V. Pratap Mouli, Srikant Mohta, Govind Makharia, Vineet Ahuja; Intest Res 2021;19(2):232-238. Published online May 8, 2020; DOI: https://doi.org/10.5217/ir.2019.09181

Abstract PDF PubReader ePub

Background/Aims
Crohn’s disease (CD) and intestinal tuberculosis (ITB) remain “difficult-to-differentiate” diseases. We have previously documented peripheral blood frequency of CD4⁺CD25⁺FOXP3⁺ T-regulatory cells (Treg) as a biomarker to differentiate CD and ITB. We tried to validate these results in a larger cohort of CD and ITB patients.
Methods
Seventy treatment naïve patients of CD (n = 23) and ITB (n = 47) (diagnosed by standard criteria) were recruited prospectively from October 2016 to May 2017. Patients with history of antitubercular therapy in the past were excluded. The frequency of Treg cells in peripheral blood was determined by flow cytometry, and compared between CD and ITB patients.
Results
Similar to our previous study, frequency of Treg cells in peripheral blood was significantly increased in ITB as compared to CD patients (40.9 [interquartile range, 33–50] vs. 24.9 [interquartile range, 14.4–29.6], P< 0.001). Further, the receiver operating characteristics curve also showed good diagnostic accuracy with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.77 (95% confidence interval, 0.65–0.89) and a FOXP3⁺ cutoff value of > 31.3% had a sensitivity and specificity of 83% and 82.6% respectively, to differentiate ITB from CD. Even for the indeterminate cases (n = 33), Treg cell frequency had similar diagnostic accuracy with an AUC of 0.85 (95% confidence interval, 0.68–0.95) and a cutoff of 32.37% had sensitivity and specificity of 87% and 95% respectively, to differentiate ITB from CD.
Conclusions
The current findings validate that the increased frequency of CD4⁺CD25⁺FOXP3⁺ Treg in the peripheral blood can be used as a biomarker with high diagnostic accuracy to differentiate ITB from CD.

Citations

Citations to this article as recorded by

FoxP3-positive T regulatory cells and its effector mechanisms in Crohn’s disease: an immunohistochemical and image morphometric analysis on endoscopic mucosal biopsies
Susama Patra, Shalini Chaudhary, Subash Chandra Samal, Pavithra Ayyanar, Somanath Padhi, Hemanta Kumar Nayak, Amit Kumar Satapathy, Saurav Nayak, Ajit Sahu, Tapaskanti Parida, Mohammed Shahin
European Journal of Gastroenterology & Hepatology.2025; 37(7): 799. CrossRef
New diagnostic strategies to distinguish Crohn's disease and gastrointestinal tuberculosis
Himanshu Narang, Saurabh Kedia, Vineet Ahuja
Current Opinion in Infectious Diseases.2024; 37(5): 392. CrossRef
Evidence-based approach to diagnosis and management of abdominal tuberculosis
Daya Krishna Jha, Mythili Menon Pathiyil, Vishal Sharma
Indian Journal of Gastroenterology.2023; 42(1): 17. CrossRef
Gut Microbiome in Probable Intestinal Tuberculosis and Changes following Anti-Tuberculosis Treatment
Hyuk Yoon, Young Soo Park, Cheol Min Shin, Nayoung Kim, Dong Ho Lee
Yonsei Medical Journal.2022; 63(1): 34. CrossRef
Single-nucleotide polymorphisms and activities of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase isoforms, IDO1 and IDO2, in tuberculosis patients
Tingming Cao, Guangming Dai, Hongqian Chu, Chengcheng Kong, Huijuan Duan, Na Tian, Zhaogang Sun
Hereditas.2022;[Epub] CrossRef
Recent advances in the diagnosis of intestinal tuberculosis
Hasan Maulahela, Marcellus Simadibrata, Erni Juwita Nelwan, Nur Rahadiani, Editha Renesteen, S. W. T. Suwarti, Yunita Windi Anggraini
BMC Gastroenterology.2022;[Epub] CrossRef
Addition of computed tomography chest increases the diagnosis rate in patients with suspected intestinal tuberculosis
Saurabh Kedia, Raju Sharma, Sudheer Kumar Vuyyuru, Deepak Madhu, Pabitra Sahu, Bhaskar Kante, Prasenjit Das, Ankur Goyal, Karan Madan, Govind Makharia, Vineet Ahuja
Intestinal Research.2022; 20(2): 184. CrossRef
Inflammatory bowel disease in Korea: epidemiology and pathophysiology
Jung Won Lee, Chang Soo Eun
The Korean Journal of Internal Medicine.2022; 37(5): 885. CrossRef
Intestinal tuberculosis or Crohn's disease: Illusion or delusion or allusion
Saurabh Kedia, Vineet Ahuja
JGH Open.2021; 5(2): 177. CrossRef
Deep‐learning system for real‐time differentiation between Crohn's disease, intestinal Behçet's disease, and intestinal tuberculosis
Jung Min Kim, Jun Gu Kang, Sungwon Kim, Jae Hee Cheon
Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology.2021; 36(8): 2141. CrossRef
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) antigen-induced upregulation of interleukin-35 expression in patients with MTB infection: In vitro blockade of the effects of interleukin-35 on T lymphocyte subsets
Hongbin Jiang, Beinian Cui, Jun Zhang
Pathogens and Disease.2021;[Epub] CrossRef

8,362 View
151 Download
9 Web of Science
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