Antigens of Mycobacterium tuberculosis with Reference to Diseases Diagnosis and Special Emphasis on Lipoarabinomannan

Tuberculosis (TB) is a contagious and notorious disease globally. There are several tests available for the detection of TB, but they have severe limitations. There is no reliable test present that quickly can detect TB at an early stage and also discern between different stages of the disease. Detection of TB is the major problem. Resolving it may lead to initiation of early treatment and thus controlling further spread. Methods to detect TB are continuously evolving to achieve rapid, cheaper, sensitive, and specific results. Here, we review Mycobacterium tuberculosis lipoarabinomannan (LAM) as a diagnostic marker, which is present in the sputum and body fluids, including urine and blood. Thus, it could be an innovative approach in the diagnosis of childhood TB using urine as a sample. There is a need for developing better diagnostic tools to detect TB and using LAM as a diagnostic marker, we can overcome the shortcomings of the present tools and techniques. The application of rapid LAM test has the potential to evolve with innovative approaches being attempted to increase the sensitivity of TB detection.