Rovina Nikoletta, Panagiotou Marios, Pontikis Konstantinos, Kyriakopoulou Magdalini, Koulouris Nikolaos G, Koutsoukou Antonia
Intensive Care Unit, 1st Department of Respiratory Medicine, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and "Sotiria" Chest Disease Hospital, 152 Mesogeion Avenue, 11527 Athens, Greece.
3rd Department of Pulmonology, Sismanoglio General Hospital, 15126 Athens, Greece.
Clin Dev Immunol. 2013;2013:464039. doi: 10.1155/2013/464039. Epub 2013 Nov 27.
Detecting and treating active and latent tuberculosis are pivotal elements for effective infection control; yet, due to their significant inherent limitations, the diagnostic means for these two stages of tuberculosis (TB) to date remain suboptimal. This paper reviews the current diagnostic tools for mycobacterial infection and focuses on the application of flow cytometry as a promising method for rapid and reliable diagnosis of mycobacterial infection as well as discrimination between active and latent TB: it summarizes diagnostic biomarkers distinguishing the two states of infection and also features of the distinct immune response against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) at certain stages of infection as revealed by flow cytometry to date.
检测和治疗活动性和潜伏性结核病是有效感染控制的关键要素；然而，由于其固有的重大局限性，迄今为止，针对结核病这两个阶段的诊断方法仍不尽人意。本文回顾了当前用于分枝杆菌感染的诊断工具，并重点介绍了流式细胞术作为一种有前景的方法在快速、可靠诊断分枝杆菌感染以及区分活动性和潜伏性结核病方面的应用：总结了区分两种感染状态的诊断生物标志物，以及迄今为止流式细胞术所揭示的在感染特定阶段针对结核分枝杆菌（Mtb）的不同免疫反应特征。
