Utility of Macrophage-activated Marker CD163 for Diagnosis and Prognosis in Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Among infectious diseases, tuberculosis (TB) is a leading cause of death worldwide. Accumulated knowledge has revealed that macrophages are deeply involved in the progression and pathogenesis of TB. We hypothesized that the evaluation of a macrophage activation marker may be useful in the diagnosis and assessment of pulmonary TB. To examine the utility of the macrophage activation marker soluble CD163 (sCD163) as a diagnostic tool and measure of disease severity for pulmonary TB and tuberculous pleurisy. We compared the concentration of sCD163 in serum samples of 180 patients with active pulmonary TB with concentrations in serum samples of 45 age- and sex-matched control subjects. We also measured sCD163 in pleural fluid samples of 100 patients with pleural disease, including 31 patients with tuberculous pleurisy. We found increased serum concentrations of sCD163 in patients with active pulmonary TB compared with those of control subjects (1,643 ± 1,737 ng/ml vs. 533.9 ± 49.3 ng/ml; P