DIASKINTEST AND TUBERCULIN TEST: INSTEAD OR TOGETHER?

A considerable proportion of the community of ordinary phthisiatricians and epidemiologists is concerned about the information that an instruction has been already prepared to be approved by the order of the Ministry of Health of Russia, according to which mass examination will be performed using the Mantoux test in children aged less than 7years and the diaskintest (DST) alone in those aged 8 years or older and in adolescents. Thus, the Mantoux skin test that is considered by the WHO to have not yet lost its importance even after 105 years of trials; in our country it will be soon replaced by DST that is «an innovation method having no analogue in the world». It should be noted that DST has been officially endorsed as recently as 5 years ago and only in Russia. From our point of view, there is currently no strong research evidence that due to the cancellation of the Mantoux test, latent tuberculosis missed in older children will not be responsible for an epidemic rebound as a dramatic rise in the incidence of active forms of tuberculosis in a few years.

tuberculosis, tuberculin diagnostics, Mantoux test