[Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich] TB Risk: Promising Approaches for Screening and Prediction

7 May 2026

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich news release

Household contacts of people with TB have a high risk of getting TB themselves, at around 2 percent. It is currently difficult to detect TB in its early stages, or predict who will go on to have TB, and therefore preventive treatment is not widely used. Most contacts are asymptomatic and current approaches rely mainly on symptom-based screening and sputum testing, which often miss early or hidden disease. As a result, many infections are only identified once the disease has progressed.

A study explored a different approach: host-response assays. The researchers assessed whether a blood-based 3-gene host-response test can detect active TB and help predict future disease. Unlike standard tests that detect the bacteria directly, these assays measure the body’s immune response, which may allow earlier identification of infection and people at higher risk of disease.

Read the full news release here.

Source: Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich