[Antituberculosis humoral immunity in patients with tuberculosis, HIV infection concurrent with tuberculoses].

Enzyme immunoassay (EIA) was used to study the diagnostic value of PTAT circulating in the free and attached state as part of serum circulating immune complexes (CIC) in 34 patients with tuberculosis (TB), 38 with concomitant HIV/TB infection, and 92 with HIV infection without active tuberculosis. A humoral immunological response as circulating PTAT and PTAT conjugated in specific CIC depends on both the form and degree of pulmonary tuberculosis and may be employed to diagnose a disease running as both an independent entity and in the concomitant HIV/TB infection. The use of specific CIC yields additional information on the presence and circulation of mycobacterial antigenic components, which should be borne in mind at the early stages of the disease. EIA diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis from the significant titer of PTAT is relatively effective at the stages with infiltration and it ascertains destructive changes before their detection on X-ray and tomographic films.