J Korean Med Sci.  2021 Sep;36(36):e246. 10.3346/jkms.2021.36.e246.

Latent Tuberculosis Infection Screening and Treatment in Congregate Settings (TB FREE COREA): Demographic Profiles of InterferonGamma Release Assay Cohort

• Kim HW
• Min J
• Choi JY
• Shin AY
• Myong JP
• Lee Y
• Yim HW
• Jeong H
• Bae S
• Shim E
• In H
• Chun C
• Kim G
• Kang JY
• Lee SS
• Park JS
• Kim JS

• KMID: 2520110
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2021.36.e246

Abstract

In 2017, the Korean government launched an unprecedentedly large-scaled latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) screening project which covered more than a million individuals in congregate settings. A total of 1,047,689 participants of source population (n = 2,336,157) underwent LTBI testing from 2017 to 2018. The overall LTBI test uptake rate during this project was 44.8%. Workers in daycare centers (83.5%) and kindergartens (78.9%) showed high participation rate. A total of 1,012,206 individuals with valid results of interferongamma release assay (IGRA) were selected to constitute the IGRA cohort. Most of the enrolled participants in the IGRA cohort were in their working age. Approximately, threequarters of total enrolled population were female. Investigating the LTBI prevalence, stages of LTBI care cascade, natural history of LTBI, efficacy of LTBI treatment and cost-effectiveness of LTBI screening are feasible within this IGRA cohort.

Keyword

Latent Tuberculosis; Interferon-gamma Release Tests; Republic of Korea; Mass Screening

Figure

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  Fig. 1 Flow chart showing the process of IGRA cohort constitution. Number of source population, participation rate of LTBI testing and that of IGRA by each congregate setting were presented.IGRA = Interferon-gamma release assay, LTBI = latent tuberculosis infection, TST = tuberculin skin test, NHID = National Health Information Database, TB = tuberculosis.

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