We performed a prospective cohort study of adults and adolescents presenting with symptoms compatible with TB from South Africa, The Gambia, Uganda and Vietnam. Prior to microbiological confirmation, 20 µL of capillary blood was analyzed using a multi-biomarker test (MBT) with 3 host cytokines as well as the Cepheid HR3 3 host gene test. Accuracy of the tests was determined in relation to GeneXpert Ultra results and case definition algorithm incorporating clinical and microbiological findings with patients classified as having TB or other respiratory diseases (ORD).
Data analysis was performed in R using the MLR3 machine learning framework.