ISSN 2756-3332
African Journal of Nursing and Midwifery ISSN 2198-4638 Vol. 7 (8), pp. 001-005, August, 2019. © International Scholars Journals
Full Length Research paper
Evaluation of immunohistochemistry with a panel of antibodies against recombinant mycobacterial antigens for the diagnosis of tuberculous lymphadenitis
S. Sumi and V. V. Radhakrishnan*
Department of Pathology, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram - 695 011, Kerala, India.
Accepted 23 April, 2019
Abstract
Diagnosis of tuberculous lymphadenitis can be an enigma owing to its varied clinical manifestation and also due to the low sensitivity of conventional bacteriological methods to confirm the presence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The present study was precisely designed to evaluate the potential diagnostic application of immunohistochemistry using a panel of antibodies against mycobacterial antigens for the diagnosis of tuberculous lymphadenitis. Immunohistochemistry was performed on the formalin-fixed paraffin sections of lymph node biopsies using rabbit polyclonal antibodies against four recombinant mycobacterial proteins, that is, ESAT-6, HspX, Tb8.4 and PlcA. The results of immunohistochemistry were correlated with Zeihl-Neelsen staining method. Immunohistochemistry using anti-ESAT-6 antibody was found to be highly sensitive (88.6%). Anti-ESAT-6 and anti-PlcA antibodies were found to be highly specific. Results of the study suggest that immunohistochemistry using anti- ESAT-6 antibody has potential application for the diagnosis of tuberculous lymphadenitis, in patients in whom conventional diagnostic methods did not confirm the presence of acid-fast bacilli.
Key words: Immunohistochemistry, tuberculous lymphadenitis, recombinant mycobacterial antigens.