Effect of Cytomegalovirus and Diabetes Mellitus on the Cytokine Profile of Cellular Immunity in Tuberculosis Patients

Aims: This study aims to investigate the effect of cytomegalovirus (CMV) and diabetes mellitus (DM) on the cell-mediated immunity against TB represented by cytokine profile
Study Design: Case control study.
Place and Duration of Study: This study was carried out in Specialized Chest and Respiratory Center in Baghdad, Iraq and Department of Medical Microbiology-College of Medicine -Babylon university Hilla-Iraq, the period of study was October 2012 to January 2013.
Methodology: This study was applied on 70 TB patients .It involved also 30 apparently healthy control. The patients consists of 43 males and 27 females with age range 8-76 years old, 29 of them were diabetic .Blood samples were collected from patients and controls to estimate the immune parameters interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) and interleukin -2(IL-2 )as , and anti –CMV IgG antibodies by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).
Results: The immune parameters showed that there is no significant difference in the mean serum concentration between the patients and control groups for IFN-γ and IL-2 (P=0.05), while there was a significant increase in the mean serum concentration of anti-CMV IgG between study groups (P≤0.001).
The study also showed that there is a significant decrease in the mean serum concentration of IL-2 and IFN-γ between diabetic TB patients comparing with those non-diabetic TB patients where p values were 0.008 and 0.024 respectively.
Conclusion: Both CMV and diabetes mellitus have a role in the suppression of cellular immunity in TB patients.