Immunopathy associated with diabetes or pre-diabetes is characterized, in part, by chronic inflammation driven by persistent hyperglycemia, resulting in several complications. Generally, data from clinical tuberculosis (TB) studies indicate that patients with diabetes demonstrate a robust TB antigen-specific immune response. However, diabetes is paradoxically associated with worse TB clinical outcomes, including delayed culture conversion, increased risk of mortality, and higher rates of TB relapse. Although diabetes is an established risk factor for TB disease, additional information to identify individuals with diabetes and latent TB infection (LTBI) at greatest risk of progression to TB disease is urgently needed. Previous studies among children, adolescents, and adults who converted from a negative to a positive LTBI test reported that increased quantitative QuantiFERON-TB Gold (QFT) interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) values were predictive of progression to TB disease. Participants who self...
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