PPD skin positive, quantiferon gold positive for TB

[anahrob]

Hello,

Please someone advice me. I don't know what's going on. I was born in the Philippines. I have been in healthcare industry in America since 2004. When I first got my PPD test back in 2004 here in US, it showed positive, so I had to get a chest x-ray since then, which was negative. When I worked at the hospital, I had to have blood work done since PPD showed positive in the past couple of years. My Quantiferon TB test done was negative back then. I left the hospital and went to another facility. Worked in this facility for 1 and 1/2 years. Now, I have re-applied at the hospital that I used to worked at. They screen me for TB by doing quantiferon gold test (lab work) and it is showing positive. My mom told me I had a BCG vaccine when I was an infant back in the Philippines. However, my researched online showed that, the only way the quantiferon test shows positive is to have a TB infection. It says quantiferon lab test is not affected by BCG vaccine at all! Is this true? I just had a second blood drawn to make sure if the first result was not false positive. My question is, If the second blood test still shows positive, what is this mean? I won't get the result until 72 hours though. I think my employee health nurse will send me for an x-ray as well depending on the result of the second blood test. My biggest concern is, my job offer is contingent to my pre-employment health screening. I am so worried right now!

[JustBeachyNurse, LPN]

BCG vaccine only shows false positive for PPD. There is no cross reactivity with the blood test. Consult the CDC website or your county health department for details/information. Positive TB blood tests /x-rays are a public health issue and generally handled by the county public health department

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

Here are the links for the CDC CDC | TB | Fact Sheets - BCG Vaccine

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