Tuberculosis, a granulooratous disorder, is an infection caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) in which the cellular inurrnne response plays an important role. Sputum culture conversion folloss ing 8 creeks of treatment is a marker of response to antituberculaus chemotherapy, however, culture requires up to 6 weeks to perform, whereas assessment of immunological parameters in biological fluids can be accomplished within days, and if validated as a marker, may be useful in setting where the activity of short-term administration of new drugs.
This study was designed to evaluate the serum levels of interleukin- 18 (IL- 18). interferon-y (INF-)) and soluble Fibroblast associated (sFas) in cases with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) as proved by positive sputum culture.
The study comprised 50 patients (28 males and 72 females) with positive sputum culture for AL tuberculosis selected out of 145 patients with suspected TB and 25 age and sex-matched healthy volunteers as a control group. There were 13 patients with complicated and 37 patients with uncomplicated TB. All the studied participants gave blood samples for estimation of serum levels of IL-18, INF-yand sFas using enzyme-linked brunwrosorbent assay (ELISA).
There was a significant (P<0.05) increase in senan levels of the three parameters in patients compared to controls and also in complicated cases compared to uncomplicated cases. Moreover, serum levels of sFas in the TB patients showed a positive significant correlation with serum levels of IL-l8, (x=0.532. P<0.001) and I.VF-y, (r=0.37, P=0.008), and also there was a positive significant correlation between serum levels of IL-18 and INF-y, (r=0.6/2, P<0.00/).
It could be concluded that elevated serum levels of IL-18 and INF-y could be considered pathogttomonic markers suggesting pulmonary tuberculosis especially in complicated cases and are recommended to be estimated for rapid initiation of antitttberctdoits therapy till diagnosis was confirmed by culture examination.