GLOBAL CHALLENGES

Better Detection for Tuberculosis

Dave Greenfield | Date: 05-28-10 | Comments

Researchers from the University of Colorado are hoping to help stem the tide by providing technology for early detection for tuberculosis.

This past Monday, March 24, was recognized internationally as Tuberculosis Awareness Day. Tuberculosis (TB) is far from a conquered disease. Despite images of 19th century waifs wasting away from consumption, the world is very much in the midst of a modern-day epidemic. Researchers from the University of Colorado are hoping to help stem the tide by providing technology for early detection.

The usual form of TB is typically very preventable, and easily and inexpensively treated. Yet each day, 5,000 Indians contract and 1,000 die of TB. Clinics estimate that, in just one month, some 1,500 Indian children are diagnosed with the disease. India highlights the plight of tuberculosis, but it is a problem throughout the world. Some 9 million people become ill with the disease each year, mostly in the developing world. In 2008, 1.8 million people died as a result. One of the biggest concerns is detection. Currently, it is described as �cumbersome,� and failure to quickly detect the disease results in preventable deaths and the spread of infection.

The University of Colorado team is working on a portable TB detection system that would result in more rapid results and, by extension, more effective treatment and prevention efforts. Currently, conventional methods including sputum tests that examine lung and bronchial secretions, and can take several weeks to produce results. With this lag, time and money are often spent on patients who do not, in fact, have the infection.

In contrast, the �field-ready� test can detect the TB pathogen in only 20 minutes. It can also detect patients who carry TB microbes and those who were infected but whose immune response was successful in fighting the illness. Says Diego Krapf, applied physicist and assistant professor of engineering at Colorado State University, �Our detector senses proteins, not an immune response against them. The benefit of doing this is that while proteins mark the presence of disease, antibodies remain in the organism after the disease is long gone.� The risk of false positives, then, is reduced. Precious manpower and resources can be directed toward those patients who have the illness.

The detection unit, which is built from existing�and mostly inexpensive�components, may also be useful in the United States. Here, it would be used not for detecting TB in people, but in bovine. The United States processes some 33 million head of cattle each year, including more than a million from Mexico, where bovine TB has been an issue. A fast, accurate test would save ranchers time and money while making beef safer for millions of Americans.