Tuberculosis clinical trials at UC Health

This study will evaluate the performance of the VIDAS® Interferon Gamma (IFN-γ) Release Assay (TB-IGRA) assay, which is intended for use as an aid in the diagnosis of tuberculosis infection. This study is designed to assess (1) the sensitivity of this assay, (2) its percent agreement with other diagnostic tests, (3) its measurement precision , and (4) any potential interference of the presence of other non-tuberculosis mycobacterial bacterial infections with this assay.

The three-month short-course treatment with isoniazid [H] and rifapentine [P] (3HP) recently recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could dramatically increase the number of persons starting and completing treatment for latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI), but TB providers nationwide are hamstrung by the requirement that 3HP only be administered by directly observed therapy (DOT) in which patients are watched taking each medication dose in-person. We developed a novel mHealth application that allows patients to make and send videos of each medication dose ingested that are watched by healthcare providers via a HIPAA-compliant website to remotely monitor LTBI treatment adherence (Video DOT [VDOT]). This study will determine whether monitoring patients with VDOT achieves higher treatment completion rates and greater patient acceptability at lower cost than clinic-based in-person DOT.