IP-10 and RANTES as biomarkers for pulmonary tuberculosis diagnosis and monitoring

Objective: We aimed to determine whether IP-10 and RANTES plasma levels can be used in diagnosis and monitoring of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB). Methods: Plasma levels of cytokines/chemokines were measured using a Bio-Plex' multiplex cytokine assay system in a cohort containing 457 clinically suspected PTB patients including a training set (n = 41)and two independent WA sets A (n = 242) and B (n = 174). Results: Plasma levels of IP-10 and RANTES were significantly higher in PTB patients than healthy controls' in both training and independent test sets (P < 0.05). Compared with other combinations, the combination of IP10 and RANTES had the best performance with an AUC of 1.0 in training set. The performance characteristic of this model was successfully validated in independent WA set A although this combination only resulted in a slightly improvement of AUC value in independent test set B. Plasma IP-10 and RANTES levels were weakly and positively correlated with blood glucose concentrations. Moreover, IP-10 levels were positively correlated with CRP and ESR in PTB patients. Furthermore, in response to therapy, both IP-10 and RANTES levels significantly decreased over the period of 6 months (P < 0.001). Conclusions: Taken together, combination of IP-10 and RANTES could be potentially used as diagnostic and monitoring biomarker in PTB management.