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Setting: The significance of adenosine deaminase (ADA) level in diagnosis of tuberculosis is known.
Objectives: We aimed to investigate serum ADA levels in patients with tuberculosis and its relation with drug resistance and tuberculo¬sis categories.
Design: The study involved 51 pulmonary tuberculosis patients and eleven healthy controls. All patients classified according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and 60.8% of the patients were category I, 21.6% were category II and 17.6% were category IV pulmonary tuber¬culosis. Serum ADA levels of the sensitive cases to isoniazid (H), ri¬fampicin (R), ethambutol (E) and streptomycin (S) were compared with those of the resistant cases.
Results: Serum ADA levels were higher in R and E sensitive group then in the resistant group (p=0.046, p=0.045). Serum ADA levels were similar in H and S sensitive group and resistant group (p>0.05). Serum ADA levels were higher in category I group when compared with the levels of the healthy group (p: 0.03). Comparison between the serum ADA levels of the groups of category I, II and IV with each other showed that the values of category I were significantly higher than values of category II (p=0,038). Although there were no statistically significant differences, it was shown that when the number of resistant drugs increased, the mean serum ADA level tend to decrease.
In conclusion, serum ADA levels of category I pati ents were higher than healthy group and while the number of resistant drugs increasing, ADA levels were decreasing