Patients and study design: The study was performed on randomly selected 50 pulmonary tuberculosis patients (mean age, ± , 28 men and 22 women) who had been admitted to the Beijing Tuberculosis and Thoracic Tumor Research Institute during 12 months (April 2008 - April 2009). Pulmonary tuberculosis was diagnosed by the clinical parameters: presence of cough/expectoration, chest X-ray showing infiltrated and /or cavities, a minimum of one positive sputum smear and culture result for acid-fast bacilli. The exclusion criteria were human immunodeficiency virus positivity, diabetes mellitus, pregnancy and immunological or autoimmune diseases (Table I). Ten healthy volunteers (mean age,.
