Diagnosis of female genital tuberculosis (FGTB) remains a challenge. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic value of T-SPOT.TB on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) for diagnosing FGTB in an area with high TB burden.Patients with suspected FGTB were enrolled consecutively between August 2010 and August 2015. T-SPOT.TB on PBMCs and histopathology were performed in all patie...

BACKGROUND With the burden of HIV and AIDS still very high, South Africa has seen an increase in commercial traditional medicines claiming to have immune-enhancing effects. Because of lack of regulation of the traditional medicine sector, these products have proliferated. This study aimed to evaluate the immunomodulatory effects of uMakhonya®, a commercial traditional immune booster, using vari...

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α is elevated during the acute phase of Kawasaki disease (KD), which damages vascular endothelial cells to cause systemic vasculitis. In the current study, we investigated the potential role of cordycepin on TNFα expression in both lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated macrophages and ex vivo cultured peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of KD patients. We found ...

Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of antifungal plasma concentrations is increasingly recommended. However, data on antifungal concentrations in the other compartments of the peripheral blood are limited. Hence, we collected 23 blood samples from 14 patients receiving posaconazole for prophylaxis of fungal infections. These samples were separated by double-discontinuous Ficoll-Hypaque density g...

Infections with human rhinovirus (HRV) are commonly associated with acute upper and lower respiratory tract disease and asthma exacerbations. The role that HRVs play in these diseases suggests it is important to understand host-specific or virus-specific factors that contribute to pathogenesis. Since species A HRVs are often associated with more serious HRV disease than species B HRVs, differen...

Objective(s):Although recent investigations have shown chronic inflammation and inflammation-associated diseases might be ameliorated by exercise; little is known about the relation between exercise training with anti/pro-inflammatory cytokines. Materials and Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted to compare interleukin-4 (IL-4), IL-6, IL-10, IL-12, IL-13, interferon gamma (IFN-γ) le...

background: recognition of helminth-derived pathogen associated molecular patterns (pamps) by pattern recognition receptors (prrs), including toll like recep­tors (tlrs) is the first step towards initiating anti–helminth immune re­sponses. methods : using somatic antigens of ostertagia occidentalis, an important abomasal parasite of ruminants, the expression of ovine tlr2 and tlr4 in peripheral...

Sepsis is a major cause of mortality in intensive care medicine. Propofol, an intravenous general anesthetic, has been suggested to have anti-inflammatory properties and able to prevent sepsis induced by Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria by down-regulating the gene expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines. However, propofol's anti-inflammatory effects upon canine peripheral blood mononuc...