Effect of Standard Tuberculosis Treatment on Plasma Cytokine Levels in Patients with Active Pulmonary Tuberculosis

CITATION: Riou, C. et al. 2012. Effect of standard tuberculosis treatment on plasma cytokine levels in patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis. PLoS ONE, 7(5): e36886, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0036886.The original publication is available at http://journals.plos.org/plosoneBackground: Sputum Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) culture is commonly used to assess response to antibiotic treatment in individuals with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). Such techniques are constrained by the slow growth rate of Mtb, and more sensitive methods to monitor Mtb clearance are needed. The goal of this study was to evaluate changes in plasma cytokines in patients undergoing treatment for TB as a means of identifying candidate host markers associated with microbiologic response to therapy. Methods: Twenty-four plasma cytokines/chemokines were measured in 42 individuals diagnosed with active pulmonary TB, 52% were HIV co-infected. Individuals, undergoing a 26-week standard TB treatment, were followed longitudinally over 18 months and measurements were associated with HIV status and rates of sputum culture conversion. Results: Plasma concentrations of interferon-inducible protein-10 (IP-10) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) were significantly reduced upon TB treatment, regardless of HIV status. By the end of treatment, IP-10 concentrations were significantly lower in HIV negative individuals when compared to HIV-positive individuals (p = 0.02). Moreover, in HIV negative patients, plasma VEGF concentrations, measured as early as 2-weeks post TB treatment initiation, positively correlated with the time of sputum conversion (p = 0.0017). No significant changes were observed in other studied immune mediators. Conclusions: These data suggest that VEGF plasma concentration, measured during early TB treatment, could represent a surrogate marker to monitor sputum culture conversion in HIV uninfected individuals.http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0036886Publisher's versio

Foil to the West? Interrogating Perspectives for Observing East Asian Higher Education

After absorbing Western knowledge for at least one and a half centuries, East Asian higher education has made some remarkable achievements in recent decades. Throughout the region, a Western-styled higher education system has been well established. The region has become the world’s third great zone of higher education, science, and innovation, alongside North America and Western Europe/UK, with research powerhouses, and the fastest growth in scientific output. While East Asia’s achievement has been widely acknowledged, assessment of its future development is not. The strikingly contrastive assessments among scholars are often due to their perspectives employed consciously and unconsciously in their research. This chapter attempts to delve deeply into the theorization of perspectives for observing higher education development in East Asia. After some methodological inquiries into research perspective and frames of reference, it critiques the current English literature and calls for multiple perspectives for studying East Asian higher education. It concludes that current conceptualization of East Asian higher education development relies almost entirely on Western theoretical constructions and argues that the perspectives that give weight to the impact of traditional East Asian ways of cultural thinking on contemporary development are badly needed