METHODS: Iasi County, Romania.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficiency of the tuberculin produced by Cantacuzino Institute (ICB) compared to Statens Serum Institute (SSI) tuberculin in a group of high school students.
METHODS: 36 subjects were tested simultaneously with two tuberculin tipes. For each student, the left arm was tested with ICB tuberculin, while the right arm was tested with SSI tuberculin. All tests were single blind, and the subjects did not know which tuberculin type was used for each arm. The tuberculin administration sequence was random.
RESULTS: No significant discrepancies were observed in results of both tuberculin reactions. The correlation coefficient was significant (0.95) between both tests (p<0.0001, CI 0.9111-0.9765). Positive results for the tuberculin test were found in 11.1% of the subjects when we used SSI tuberculin. The pain was almost absent at ICB tuberculin injection, comparatively at SSI tuberculin.
CONCLUSIONS: Tuberculin 2u PPD made by Cantacuzino Institute has the same efficiency as tuberculin PPD RT 23 SSI. The findings of present study recommend, in absence of SSI tuberculin, to use Cantacuzino Institute tuberculin for identification of infections with Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex.