Abstract
A past history of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) is a risk factor for long-term respiratory impairment. Post-TB lung dysfunction often goes unrecognised, despite its relatively high prevalence and its association with reduced quality of life. Importantly, specific host and pathogen factors causing lung impairment remain unclear. Host immune responses probably play a dominant role in lung damage, as excessive inflammation and elevated expression of lung matrix-degrading proteases are common during TB. Variability in host genes that modulate these immune responses may determine the severity of lung impairment, but this hypothesis remains largely untested. In this review, we provide an overview of the epidemiological literature on post-TB lung impairment and link it to data on the pathogenesis of lung injury from the perspective of dysregulated immune responses and immunogenetics.
Abstract
Host factors driving lung injury in TB likely contribute to variable patterns of pulmonary impairment after TB http://ow.ly/a3of30hBsxB
Footnotes
Support statement: This study was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (KL2TR001879) and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (R01AI120821) of the National Institutes of Health. Funding information for this article has been deposited with the Crossref Funder Registry.
Conflict of interest: Disclosures can be found alongside this article at err.ersjournals.com
Provenance: Submitted article, peer reviewed.
- Received July 5, 2017.
- Accepted October 28, 2017.
- Copyright ©ERS 2018.
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