Role of endometrial cytokines of the female genital tract tuberculosis in the context of infertility

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Nowadays, one of the most common vulnerable sites of extrapulmonary tuberculosis is female genital tract tuberculosis (FGTB) leading to infertility. As FGTB produce clinical symptom quite late, its detection is very difficult to the health-care providers and according to some experts in this field; FGTB has no confirmatory investigation procedure. FGTB can cause other form of reproductive failure through ectopic pregnancy, tubal block, and implantation failure. Their presence may alter the cytokines level in endometrium. METHODS: A total of 300 cases in our clinic had undergone polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for detection of tubercle bacillus (TB-PCR). Among of them, 91 individuals fulfilling all inclusion and exclusion criteria were included in this study. In our study, we measured cytokines, two from pro-inflammatory group (interleukin-6 [IL-6] and IL-10) and three from inflammatory group (IL-2, interferon gamma [IFNγ], and tumor necrosis factor alpha [TNFα]). RESULTS: Out of 91 participants, 45 (49.46%) cases were TB-PCR positive, and 46 (50.55%) cases were TB-PCR negative. It has been observed that the value of IL-10 and TNFα did not fit any statistical parameter. The result showed that pro-inflammatory indicators IL-6 and inflammatory indicators IL-2 and IFNγ had significant different values between TB-PCR- positive and TB-PCR-negative groups. P value of this cytokines has statistically significant. CONCLUSION: From our study, we conclude that cytokine study was undertaken, of which IFNγ showed a possibility to become an important clinical indicator of endometrial hostility followed by IL-2.

Keywords

• Cytokine
• tubercular infestation
• tuberculosis-polymerase chain reaction
• unexplained infertility