Adults and adolescents living with HIV

Adults and adolescents living with HIV should be screened for TB with a
clinical algorithm and those who do not report any one of the symptoms
of current cough, fever, weight loss or night sweats are unlikely to have
active TB and should be offered IPT.
Adults and adolescents living with HIV and screened for TB with a
clinical algorithm and who report any one of the symptoms of current
cough, fever, weight loss or night sweats may have active TB and
should be evaluated for TB and other diseases.
Strong recommendation , moderate qualit y of evidence
Strong recommendation , moderate qualit y of evidence
All people living with HIV, wherever they receive
care, should be regularly screened for TB using a
clinical algorithm at every visit to a health facility or
contact with a health worker. Screening for TB is
important, regardless of whether they have received
or are receiving IPT or ART. As part of the guidelines
development process, a comprehensive systematic
primary patient data meta-analysis, including 12
observational studies involving over 8000 people
living with HIV, was used to develop the best
screening rule to identify adults and adolescents
living with HIV who are unlikely to have active TB
disease (Annex 5).[15] The analysis found that the
absence of all the symptoms of current cough, night
sweats, fever or weight loss can identify a subset of
people living with HIV who have a very low probability
of having TB disease. This best screening rule has
a sensitivity of 79% and a specificity of 50%. At
5% TB prevalence among people living with HIV,
the negative predictive value was 97.7% (95%CI
97.4–98.0). This high negative predictive value
ensures that those who are negative on screening
are unlikely to have TB and hence can reliably start
IPT. Therefore, the Guidelines Group recommends
that adults and adolescents living with HIV should be
screened for TB using a clinical algorithm at every
visit to a health facility or contact with a health worker.
Those who do not have current cough, fever, weight
loss or night sweats are unlikely to have active TB
and should be offered IPT. This recommendation is
applicable for those living with HIV irrespective of the
degree of immunosuppression, and for those on ART,
those who have previously been treated for TB and
pregnant women (Figure 1).
Furthermore, the GRADE assessment of the evidence
showed that the addition of abnormal findings on chest
radiography to the four-symptom-based rule increases
the sensitivity from 79% to 91% with a drop in specificity
from 50% to 39%. At a 5% TB prevalence rate among
people living with HIV, augmenting the symptom-based
rule with abnormal findings on chest radiography
increases the negative predictive value by a margin of
only 1% (98.7% versus 97.8%). On the other hand, the
addition of abnormal chest radiographic findings to the
symptom-based rule at a TB prevalence of 20% among
people living with HIV increases the negative predictive
value by almost 4% (94.3% versus 90.4%). This
suggests that chest radiography could be considered
to augment the utility of symptom-based screening
in settings with high TB prevalence rates among
people living with HIV. However, the Guidelines Group
recognized that the desire for increased sensitivity
and negative predictive value is often accompanied by
significant feasibility concerns such as cost, workload,
infrastructure and qualified staff. Therefore, the
Guidelines Group recommends that in most settings,
the symptom-based rule should be implemented,