Research Article Latent Tuberculosis Infection among a Large Cohort of Medical Students at a Teaching Hospital in Italy Paolo Durando, 1,2 Cristiano Alicino, 1 Andrea Orsi, 1 Ilaria Barberis, 1 Chiara Paganino, 1 Guglielmo Dini, 2 Giovanni Mazzarello, 3 Valerio Del Bono, 3 Claudio Viscoli, 3 Francesco Copello, 2 Dimitri Sossai, 4 Giovanni Orengo, 5 Laura Sticchi, 1 Filippo Ansaldi, 1 and Giancarlo Icardi 1 1 Department of Health Sciences, University of Genoa and Hygiene and Infection Control Unit, IRCCS AOU San Martino-IST teaching Hospital, Largo R. Benzi 10, 16132 Genoa, Italy 2 Postgraduate School in Occupational Medicine, University of Genoa and Occupational Medicine Unit, IRCCS AOU San Martino-IST teaching Hospital, Largo R. Benzi 10, 16132 Genoa, Italy 3 Department of Health Sciences, University of Genoa and Infectious Diseases Unit, IRCCS AOU San Martino-IST teaching Hospital, Largo R. Benzi 10, 16132 Genoa, Italy 4 Health Safety and Prevention Unit, IRCCS AOU San Martino-IST teaching Hospital, Largo R. Benzi 10, 16132 Genoa, Italy 5 Quality and Risk Management Unit, IRCCS AOU San Martino-IST teaching Hospital, Largo R. Benzi 10, 16132 Genoa, Italy Correspondence should be addressed to Cristiano Alicino; cristiano.alicino@unige.it Received 4 August 2014; Accepted 13 November 2014 Academic Editor: Francesca Fioredda Copyright © 2015 Paolo Durando et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. he surveillance of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) in both healthcare workers and healthcare students is considered fundamental for tuberculosis (TB) prevention. he aim of the present study was to estimate LTBI prevalence and evaluate potential risk-factors associated with this condition in a large cohort of medical students in Italy. In a cross-sectional study, performed between March and December 2012, 1511 eligible subjects attending the Medical School of the University of Genoa, trained at the IRCCS San Martino-IST Teaching Hospital of Genoa, were actively called to undergo the tuberculin skin test (TST). All the TST positive cases were conirmed with an interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA). A standardized questionnaire was collected for multivariate risk analysis. A total of 1302 (86.2%) students underwent TST testing and completed the questionnaire. Eleven subjects (0.8%) resulted TST positive and LTBI diagnosis was conirmed in 2 (0.1%) cases. Professional exposure to active TB patients (OR 21.7, 95% CI 2.9–160.2;  value 0.003) and previous BCG immunization (OR 28.3, 95% CI 3.0–265.1;  value 0.003) are independently associated with TST positivity. Despite the low prevalence of LTBI among Italian medical students, an occupational risk of TB infection still exists in countries with low circulation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. 1. Introduction A work-related risk of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) and active tuberculosis (TB) among healthcare workers (HCWs) exists even in areas with low incidence of TB among the general population, such as Europe [1–3]. he majority of occupational active cases in the healthcare sector occur when the TB infection risk is underestimated and control programs are lacking [4, 5]. Moreover, improving the knowledge about TB transmission and adopting efective control measures to face the spread of the infection in healthcare setting have been recommended with the aim of reducing the risk of nosocomial infection [6–8]. Medical students attending teaching hospitals could be exposed to similar occupational risks as HCWs. herefore, screening for LTBI of these categories, for an early diagnosis of cases and preventing progression to active disease, rep- resents a fundamental aspect of hospital infection control programs and is recommended also in low-incidence TB countries, including Italy [9–11]. Hindawi Publishing Corporation BioMed Research International Volume 2015, Article ID 746895, 6 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/746895