{"doi":"10.3390/diagnostics14010050","title":"The Assessment of Serum Fibronectin Levels as a Potential Biomarker for the Severity of Drug-Sensitive Pulmonary Tuberculosis: A Pilot Study","abstract":"BACKGROUND: (Mtb) infection. Fibronectin (Fn) facilitates Mtb attachment to host cells. We studied the Fn levels in smear-positive TB patients to assess its correlation with disease severity based on sputum smears and chest X-rays. METHODS: = 11) were included. The mycobacterial load in the sputum smear was assessed by IUATLD classification, ranging from 0 to 3. The severity of pulmonary involvement was assessed radiologically in terms of both the number of zones involved (0-6) and as localized (up to 2 zones), moderate (3-4 zones), or extensive (5-6 zones). The serum human fibronectin levels were measured by using a commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit (Catalogue No: CK-bio-11486, Shanghai Coon Koon Biotech Co., Ltd., Shanghai, China). RESULTS: The PTB patients showed lower Fn levels (102.4 ± 26.7) compared with the controls (108.8 ± 6.8), but they were not statistically significant. Higher AFB smear grades had lower Fn levels. The chest X-ray zones involved were inversely correlated with Fn levels. The Fn levels, adjusted for age and gender, decreased with increased mycobacterial load and the number of chest radiograph zones affected. A Fn level <109.39 g/mL predicted greater TB severity (sensitivity of 67.57% and specificity of 90.38%), while a level <99.32 pg/mL predicted severity based on the chest radiology (sensitivity of 84.21% and specificity of 100%). CONCLUSIONS: The Fn levels are lower in tuberculosis patients and are negatively correlated with severity based on sputum mycobacterial load and chest radiographs. The Fn levels may serve as a potential biomarker for assessing TB severity, which could have implications for early diagnosis and treatment monitoring.","journal":"Diagnostics","year":2023,"id":384150,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.94,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1094787,"name":"Sumalatha Arunachala","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":979766,"name":"Sindaghatta Krishnarao Chaya","orcid":"0000-0002-4898-9466","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1151421,"name":"Rekha Vaddarahalli ShankaraSetty","orcid":"0009-0008-6781-3627","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1151422,"name":"Medha Karnik","orcid":"0000-0002-1591-8004","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1151423,"name":"Nidhi Bansal","orcid":"0000-0001-7072-1311","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1151424,"name":"Sukanya Ravindran","orcid":"0009-0002-6507-8098","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":798830,"name":"Komarla Sundararaja Lokesh","orcid":"0000-0001-5651-1123","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1151801,"name":"Mikash Mohan","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":909066,"name":"Mohammed Kaleem Ullah","orcid":"0000-0001-8470-3114","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":909068,"name":"Jayaraj Biligere Siddaiah","orcid":"0000-0001-6055-4580","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":48868,"name":"P A Mahesh","orcid":"0000-0003-1632-5945","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1151420,"name":"Shreedhar Kulkarni","orcid":"0009-0009-0147-8376","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":53,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:17:33.041385Z","pmid":"38201359","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}