Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is a global health problem. Immune response through CD4 + and CD8 + T cells is needed to produce Interferon gamma (IFN-γ), a cytokine eliminate Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We aimed to compare the cellular immune response based on the percentage of CD4 + and CD8 + T cells expressing interferon gamma in active pulmonary tuberculosis patients before and after 2 months of tuberculosis treatment. Methods: It is a longitudinal cohort study included 12 patients with new active pulmonary TB of the Pulmonary Hospital, Surabaya. The CD4 + and CD8 + T cells expressing interferon gamma was measured by flow cytometry method. Results: The mean CD4 + interferon gamma percentage of new active pulmonary TB before treatment was higher than 2 months after tuberculosis treatment (4.48% vs. 1.52%) and there was a significantly decreased (p = 0.025). The mean CD8 + interferon gamma percentage of new active pulmonary TB before treatment was higher than 2 months after tuberculosis treatment (3.56% vs. 2.89%) but not significantly decreased (p = 0.186). Conclusions: The mean CD4 + IFN-γ percentage of new active pulmonary TB before treatment was higher than 2 months after treatment, suggesting that CD4 + T cells expressing IFN-γ play a role in protection against pulmonary TB infection.

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Background. Sepsis is defined as a life-threatening organ dysfunction condition caused by dysregulation of host response towards infection. Sepsis is one of the leading causes of death in medical emergency. A recent study revealed 18 millions of sepsis occur annually with a mortality rate of 30%, so early diagnosis in assessing sepsis severity is necessary as a guide for early and specific therapy. Organ dysfunction in sepsis patients is associated with high mortality, assessed by Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) criteria. Procalcitonin is widely used for diagnosing, monitoring, and prognosis sepsis.Aim This study aimed to analyze the correlation of procalcitonin level with sepsis severity based on SOFA score.  Method. This was an observational cross-sectional study. Samples were collected from December 2017-February 2018 of 72 patients. Each patient was calculated by SOFA score and underwent procalcitonin examination using an immunochromatography method by RAMP. Results. Samples from 72 patients who met the criteria, were analyzed consisting of 37 mailes(51.4%) and 35 females(48.6%), aged 23-77 years, with mean±SD 47.4±14.02 years. The range of SOFA score was 0-16 with mean±SD 6.47±3.61, while procalcitonin levels 0.20-200 ng/mL mean±SD 21.03±14.63 ng/mL. There was a significant correlation between procalcitonin level and SOFA score (r=0.752;p<0.0001).Discussion. This suggests that procalcitonin may illustrate the severity of sepsis patients. The higher the procalcitonin, the more severe the sepsis.Conclusions and recommendations. SOFA score and procalcitonin examinations should be performed routinely in patients with sepsis to assess prognosis (severity) for earlier pretreatment so that the mortality rate can be lowered.

Introduction: High recurrence of a fibrotic disease, pterygium, following the surgical procedure is perceived as the primary challenge of its management. As the standard procedure, adjuvant therapy of using mitomycin C could dramatically reduce the recurrence of pterygium but could cause multiple serious complications. Our study aimed to investigate curcumin and fibrin glue as alternative candidates for adjuvant therapy in pterygium surgery. Methods: Human pterygium fibroblast (HPF) was isolated from the patient and cultured in-vitro. The HPF culture was then exposed with mitomycin C (0.4 mg/mL), curcumin (200 μmol/L), and fibrin glue, respectively, for 48 hours. The outcomes were determined by the proliferation of HPF and the expression of transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) which were obtained from 2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide assay and immunofluorescence staining analysis with TGF-β antibody. Results: The experiment revealed that mitomycin C, curcumin, and fibrin glue could significantly inhibit the proliferation of HPF (p<0.05) suggesting their antifibrotic effect. Further analysis with immunofluorescence staining showed that mitomycin C, curcumin, and fibrin glue could significantly reduce the level of TGF-β as compared with control group (p<0.05). Conclusion: Mitomycin C was the most potent adjuvant agent to reduce the recurrence of pterygium, followed by curcumin and fibrin glue. Taken altogether, curcumin and fibrin glue have role as adjuvant therapy to prevent recurrence in pterygium surgery.

The diagnosis of viral dengue infection is very important for the management of dengue patients. In acute phase infection circulatingNS1 antigen can be detected in the sera of patients with dengue viral infection. This study is evaluating the NS1 antigen level in denguepatients using antigen captured ELISA Platelia TM Dengue NS1 Ag (Bio-Rad Laboratories). In this 30 examined dengue patients consistingof 3(10%) undifferentiated fever, 10(33.33%) dengue fever, 12(40%) DHF grade I, 2(6.66%) DHF grade II, 2(6.66%) DHF gradeIII, 1(3.33%) DHF grade IV. The result revealed that NS1 antigen was positive in 12 among 30 patients (40%) which were diagnosedas Dengue Viral infection based on 1997 WHO criteria. The sensitivity of NS1 antigen in these patients as confirmed with IgM andIgG antidengue serology test was 52.2%. The highest positivism of NS1 antigen was on the third day of fever. The results analyzed bySpearman correlation test revealed that there was no significant correlation between NS1 antigen level and the severity of dengue viralinfection. The cut-off value of quantitative NS1 antigen could not be determined because they were no significant correlation shown forNS1 antigen as the predictor for the severity of dengue viral infection. The conclusion of the study so far shown that the quantitativeNS1 antigen level could not be used as the predictor for the severity of dengue viral infection. The cut-off value of quantitative NS1antigen could not be determined because there were no significant correlation shown for NS1 antigen as the predictor for the severityof dengue viral infection.