Early diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis using serum biomarkers

Abstract

The early diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) remains the biggest obstacle to the global TB control, TB being the second leading cause of infectious disease death worldwide. As such, one of the pioneering investigations is made by Xu et al. (Proteomics 2015, 15, 58-67), which is of promising clinical application significance when used in clinics and in TB screening in the population. Xu et al. revealed that statistical differences among three serum proteins (S100A9, SOD3, and MMP9) exist between TB cases and other lung disease cases. The combination of the three biomarkers could give 92.5% sensitivity and 95% specificity to discriminate TB from healthy controls.

Keywords: Biomarkers; Differential diagnosis; Serum; Tuberculosis.