Hi Sue,

I read the article you linked about false positives. It doesn't refer to a specific false positive rate but instead mentions reasons why the test may be false positive. I'm asking because from what I understand (I have a public health background, with experience in epidemiology, although not a specialization in infectious disease), the test has a both very high sensitivity and specificity, meaning that false positives and false negatives are low (excepting the situations in the link you shared, such as the BCG vaccine. The article I'm looking at is: Mahmoudi, S., Nourazar, S. Evaluating the diagnostic accuracy of QIAreach QuantiFERON-TB compared to QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus for tuberculosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sci Rep 14, 14455 (2024); (I can't link it because the link looks like a phone number, which isn't allowed to be in messages).

So my interpretation is that the reason that healthcare professionals don't accept re-testing is because the test is so accurate. It's like taking repeat pregnancy tests - there is no point. The poster has latent tuberculosis, unfortunately, and it sounds like it will complicate their professional life, and they will need to document their treatment.

I personally have just started treatment for my latent TB and am glad I stumbled upon this thread, because I never thought about what the diagnosis would mean for future documentation.