Abstract: Objective To explore the domestic ELISA assay for detecting specific cellular immune response to tuberculosis (A.TB test) in the diagnosis of tuberculosis patients. Methods Of the 326 patients with suspected pulmonary tuberculosis who were checked with A.TB in Hainan Branch of Chinese PLA General Hospital from May 2013 to November 2013, 318 patients were involved in this trial with excluding the data incomplete and ultimately unconfirmed cases. A.TB value for pulmonary tuberculosis diagnosis in 89 patients who were diagnosed as tuberculosis was retrospectively analyzed. Results Of the 89 cases with pulmonary tuberculosis, 28 cases were smear-positive, including 20 cases being positive detected by A.TB test with the positive rate of 71.4%; 61 cases were smear-negative patients, including 45 cases being positive detected by A.TB test with the positive rate of 73.8%. For patients in the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis with smear-positive, smear-negative and patients in the diagnosis of non tuberculosis, A.TB concentration showed a trend of decrease with significant difference between each other (χ²=97.360, P=0.001). The A.TB concentration average levels of smear positive and smear negative were significantly higher than that of non tuberculosis (P=0.001). ROC curve area of the 89 patients with A.TB concentration was 0.816 (P=0.001) with the sensitivity of 71.9% and the specificity of 86.1%; ROC curve area of smear positive patients with A.TB concentration was 0.762 (P=0.001) with the sensitivity of 71.4% and the specificity of 87.8%; ROC curve area of smear negative patients with A.TB concentration was 0.841 (P=0.001) with the sensitivity of 72.1% and the specificity of 86.5%. Conclusion Domestic A.TB can be used as an auxiliary diagnosis method for pulmonary tuberculosis.