Correlation between serum adenosine deaminase and cancer antigen 125 in assessment of severity of active pulmonary tuberculosis

Objectives It is not always easy to diagnose tuberculosis (TB) accurately; thus, there are always continuous trials to find the best possible method with a short duration and acceptable accuracy. This study aimed to correlate between serum adenosine deaminase (ADA) and cancer antigen 125 (CA125) in the assessment of severity of pulmonary TB. Patients and methods A total of 45 sex-matched and age-matched patients were included in our study and were classified into three groups: group I included 15 patients with active pulmonary TB with positive sputum smear result, group II included 15 patients with multidrug resistance pulmonary TB, and group III included 15 patients with pulmonary TB after sputum conversion. All included patients were subjected to detailed medical history; full clinical examination; chest radiography to determine the severity of the disease whether minimal, moderate, advanced, or far advanced; laboratory investigations [white blood cells count, platelet count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and sputum Ziehl–Neelsen staining]; grading on sputum smear microscopy as 1+, 2+, or 3+; sputum culture on L-J media; and CA125 and ADA analysis, where 5 ml of blood was collected and centrifuged and serum was separated, from which CA125 and ADA were measured using CA125II kits and ADA016 kits, respectively. Patients received antituberculous treatment in the hospital according to WHO and national guidelines. Results There was a significant statistical difference among the studied groups regarding CA125 and ADA, where P values were 0.018 and 0.014, respectively. Both were higher in group I measuring 64.42 U/ml and 24.22 U/l, respectively, and lower in group III measuring 27.22 U/ml and 16.08 U/l, respectively, after treatment for 2 months. In the current study, there was an insignificant statistical difference in serum CA125 and ADA regarding age and sex, but there were statistically significant differences among the studied groups regarding sputum Ziehl–Neelsen staining, chest radiography, and ESR. In this study, there was a significant positive correlation between both serum CA125 and serum ADA and chest radiography and ESR. Regarding sputum analysis, there was no difference regarding CA125 between positive and negative cases, but serum ADA was higher in positive cases than in negative ones. On the contrary, there was an insignificant statistical correlation between serum ADA and serum CA125