BACKGROUND Tuberculosis (TB) during pregnancy in HIV-infected women is associated with poor maternal and infant outcomes. There are limited data on TB prevalence, optimal TB screening, and performance of rapid diagnostics in pregnant HIV-infected women. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional study among HIV-infected pregnant women seeking antenatal care in western Kenya. After a standardized ...

Tuberculosis (TB) is an ancient human disease and remains today one of the most important public health problems and the second most frequent cause of death from an infectious disease worldwide. While pulmonary TB is the most common form, extra-pulmonary TB is on the rise due to the increase in immunosuppressed subjects. Cutaneous TB manifestations are rare forms of extra-pulmonary TB due to sy...

Immunogenetic host factors are associated with susceptibility or protection to tuberculosis (TB). Strong associations of HLA class II genes with TB are reported. We analyzed the HLA-DRB1*04 alleles to identify subtypes associated with pulmonary TB and their interaction with risk factors such as alcohol, smoking, and gender in 316 pulmonary TB patients and 306 healthy individuals from the Brazil...

AIM Both of the diagnosis and treatment evaluation are time-consuming conditions in patients with pulmonary and pleural tuberculosis. The aim of this study was to establish the validity of tumor markers CA 125, CA 15-3, and CA 19-9 in the diagnosis of pulmonary and pleural TB and to verify the success of the treatment protocol. PATIENTS AND METHODS The levels of tumor markers CA 125, CA 15-3,...

INTRODUCTION Smear-negative pulmonary TB (SNPT) represents 30-60% of all pulmonary TB cases. The mortality of these patients can reach 25% in populations with high prevalence of HIV infection, and 10-20% of TB transmission at the population level are attributable to SNPT cases. METHODS We conducted a retrospective study to evaluate epidemiological, clinical, and radiological characteristics o...

Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the world's major health burdens with 9.6 million new infections globally. Though considerable progress has been made in reduction of TB incidence and mortality, there is a continuous need for lower cost, simpler and more robust means of diagnosis. One method that may fulfil these requirements is in the area of breath analysis. In this study we analysed the brea...

Background: In developing countries like India where there is very high prevalence of TB and TB HIV co-infection microbiological confirmation of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) is of paramount importance. Objectives: To assess the significance of sputum induction (SI) with hypertonic saline nebulization as a diagnostic tool in patients with suspected pulmonary TB who have no/inadequate sputum or ha...

SETTING Seven primary health clinics and a pulmonary disease specialty clinic in Rio de Janeiro City, Brazil. OBJECTIVE To evaluate a commercial immunochromatographic test kit (ICT Tuberculosis; AMRAD-ICT; Sidney, Australia) employing five recombinant Mycobacterium tuberculosis proteins for the detection of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). DESIGN Serology test results were compared with duplica...

Background Tuberculosis (TB) is a global health problem. Immune response through CD4+ and CD8+ T cells is needed to produce Interferon gamma (IFN-γ), a cytokine eliminate Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We aimed to compare the cellular immune response based on the percentage of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells expressing interferon gamma in active pulmonary tuberculosis patients before and after 2 months of t...

Tuberculosis is one of the most important infectious diseases. In 2009 estimate 9 million new cases were registered worldwide, mortality due tuberculosis reached 1.5 million (Markowski et al., 2011). Tuberculosis may infect any part of the body, but most commonly occurs in the lungs (known as pulmonary tuberculosis) (Dolin et al., 2010). Extra pulmonary TB occurs when tuberculosis develops outs...