Tuberculosis-specific antigen stimulated and unstimulated interferon-γ for tuberculous meningitis diagnosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective Tuberculous meningitis (TBM) is one of the most devastating TB. Accurate identification of TBM is helpful to eliminate TB. Therefore, we assessed the performance of TBAg stimulated IFN-γ (IGRA) and unstimulated IFN-γ in blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for diagnosing TBM. Methods We searched Web of Science, PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane Library databases until March 2022. Bivariate and hierarchical summary receiver operating characteristic models were employed to compute summary estimates for diagnostic accuracy parameters of IGRA and unstimulated IFN-γ in blood and CSF for diagnosing TBM. Results 28 studies including 1,978 participants and 2,641 samples met the inclusion criteria. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) and area under the curve (AUROC) of blood IGRA were separately as 0.73, 0.83, 4.32, 0.33, 13.22 and 0.86, indicating a good diagnostic accuracy of blood IGRA for detecting TBM. The summary sensitivity, specificity, PLR, NLR, DOR and AUROC of CSF IGRA were separately as 0.77, 0.91, 8.82, 0.25, 34.59 and 0.93, indicating good diagnostic accuracy of CSF IGRA for detecting TBM. The summary sensitivity, specificity, PLR, NLR, DOR and AUROC of CSF IFN-γ were separately as 0.86, 0.92, 10.27, 0.16, 65.26 and 0.95, suggesting CSF IFN-γ provided excellent accuracy for diagnosing TBM. Conclusions For differentiating TBM from non-TBM individuals, blood and CSF IGRA are good assays and unstimulated CSF IFN-γ is an auxiliary excellent marker.