Abstract: Objective To explore the clinical significance of serum fibrosis markers detection among new patients with pulmonary tuberculosis(PTB). Methods The radioimmunoassay for detection of serum fibrosis mar-kers, including hyaluronic acid(HA), laminin(LN), type Ⅲ procollagen peptide(PC Ⅲ) and collagen type Ⅳ(C-Ⅳ), were performed among 62 new PTB patients who once stayed at the Infectious Disease Department of our hospital and 62 healthy people who received health check-up at the Outpatient Department of our hospital; the same tests were repeated among 62 PTB patients when they completed the 6 months anti-TB treatment, and those patients were divided into two groups according to their treatment outcomes: effective treatment group and ineffective treatment group. The test results from PTB patients (before and after treatment) and healthy people were compared. SPSS 13.0 software was used for statistical analysis. t test was calculated and P＜0.05 was regarded as statistically significant difference. Results The results of HA, LN, PC Ⅲ and C-Ⅳ among PTB patients before treatment were (131.64±40.92)μg/L, (99.61±42.63)μg/L, (24.30±10.58)μg/L and (60.76±23.15)μg/L, which were significantly higher than those indexes among healthy group of people (58.66±15.42)μg/L, (44.19±10.43)μg/L, (14.32±4.56)μg/L, and (39.60±10.30)μg/L)(t=9.3, 6.22, 5.13, 3.9, all P values were <0.01). After received 6 months standard anti-TB treatment, the results of HA, LN, PC Ⅲ and C-Ⅳ among 46 PTB patients who had effective treatment outcomes were (61.31±19.27)μg/L, (45.62±12.34)μg/L, (13.52±4.83)μg/L and (35.27±16.36)μg/L, which had no significant difference compared to those results among the healthy group (t=2.04, 1.83, 1,25 and -1.07; all P value was＞0.05). The level of HA, LN, PC Ⅲ and C-Ⅳ among 16 PTB patients who had ineffective treatment outcomes were (104.31±18.53)μg/L, (69.94±16.71)μg/L, (13.63±4.07)μg/L and (40.64±9.79)μg/L, which had significant difference compared to the health group (t=6.87, 5.07, 3.75 and 3.12; all P values were ＜0.05). Conclusion Detection of serum fibrosis index has important clinical value on early diagnosis of fibrosis among pulmonary tuberculosis patients and prediction of their treatment outcomes.

Key words: Tuberculosis, pulmonary/pathology, Pulmonary fibrosis/blood, Hyaluronic acid, Laminin, Peptide fragments, Procollagen