Find in Library

The role of soluble soluble urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR) as a biological marker for TB treatment efficacy on active pulmonary TB-AFB(+) patients was investigated. Twenty pulmonary TB-AFB(+) patients participated in a cohort study for six months. The plasma suPAR level was measured using ELISA method before treatment, two months, four months and six months after treatment. At the same time clinical parameters were also measured. Results indicated that all patients (n=20) showed highest plasma suPAR levels before treatment (median 12.775?ng/mL) and significantly decreased ( P=.0001<.05, R2=.890) after 2 months (median 8.019?ng/mL) and 4 months (median 5.771?ng/mL) of treatment, respectively. However, only slightly declined after 6 months therapy (median 5.009?ng/mL), near control group level (median 4.772?ng/mL). Interestingly, the significant reduced of suPAR level was parallel to treatment efficacy and correlated with other clinical and laboratory parameters, that is, decreasing of patients' complaints, increasing of BMI (r=-0.281), thoracic imaging improvement, sputum conversion, decreasing of ESR (r=0.577) and monocytes count (r=0.536) with exception the width of lesion in thoracic imaging. In conclusion, the suPAR level in could reflect the progress of TB therapy.