Dr Eleanor Ochodo has been awarded a fellowship in Public Health and Tropical Medicine by the Wellcome Trust to develop a framework for the design of clinical trials to measure the impact of Tuberculosis (TB) diagnostic tests on patient outcomes.

"TB remains a pressing health problem with about nine million new cases and 1.5 million deaths reported globally in 2013," said Ochodo, a researcher at the Centre for Evidence-based Health Care at Stellenbosch University's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.

She explained that while much focus has been placed on TB test development, performance characteristics and evaluating test accuracy, less attention has been given to the best way of evaluating the impact of these tests on treatment decisions, management practices and ultimately on patients' health.

The complexitiy of results in trials for TB diagnostic tests leads to variable designs and some researchers are questioning the robustness of these designs. Ochodo will investigate specific tests and study designs to determine their impact on minimizing unnecessary empirical therapy, morbidity, mortality and other outcomes important to patients.  

In the next decade, new competing diagnostics for the detection of TB infection, disease or drug resistance are likely to be released in the market. "With this project I aim to provide guidance on how best to evaluate these tests using randomised clinical trials, which will be useful to researchers and policy makers who rely on best evidence to decide which diagnostics to invest in.

"Knowledge and the use of appropriate methods for assessing the impact of TB diagnostic tests will encourage implementation and uptake of appropriate tests, reduce wastage of healthcare resources and ultimately improve patient outcomes," Ochodo said.