About the Authors

Karen R. Steingart

Affiliation Department of Health Services, University of Washington School of Public Health, Seattle, Washington, United States of America

Laura L. Flores

Affiliations Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, San Francisco General Hospital, University of California, San Francisco, California, United States of America, Curry International Tuberculosis Center, University of California, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Nandini Dendukuri

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, McGill University & Montreal, Chest Institute, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Ian Schiller

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, McGill University & Montreal, Chest Institute, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Suman Laal

Affiliations Department of Pathology, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, New York, United States of America, Department of Microbiology, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, New York, United States of America, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, New York, New York, United States of America

Andrew Ramsay

Affiliation UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland

Philip C. Hopewell

Affiliations Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, San Francisco General Hospital, University of California, San Francisco, California, United States of America, Curry International Tuberculosis Center, University of California, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Madhukar Pai

madhukar.pai@mcgill.ca

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, McGill University & Montreal, Chest Institute, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Competing Interests

The authors have no financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. KRS serves as Coordinator of the Evidence Synthesis and Policy subgroup of Stop TB Partnership's New Diagnostics Working Group (NDWG). AR served as the secretary of the NDWG (2006-10) and is employed by WHO/TDR, the agency that administered the grant used to fund this systematic review. AR contributed to the conception and design of the systematic review and critical revision of and decision to publish the manuscript. MP is a recipient of a New Investigator Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). This funding source had no role in the preparation of this manuscript, nor the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. MP serves as an external consultant for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. MP also serves as a co-chair of the NDWG. KRS, AR, MP, and SL were involved in the WHO Expert Group process that reviewed the evidence on serological tests. KRS was involved as a systematic reviewer in the World Health Organization Expert Group process that reviewed the evidence on serological tests in July 2010. MP serves on the editorial boards of PLoS Medicine and PLoS One.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: KRS AR MP. Performed the experiments: KRS LFF. Analyzed the data: KRS ND IS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: ND IS. Wrote the paper: KRS MP. ICMJE criteria for authorship read and met: KRS LFF ND IS SL AR PCH MP. Agree with the manuscript's results and conclusions: KRS LFF ND IS SL AR PCH MP. Wrote the first draft of the paper: KRS. Obtained funding: AR.