METHOD FOR DETERMINING TUBERCULOSIS-INDUCED CHANGES ACTIVITY IN LUNGS Russian patent published in 2000 - IPC

FIELD: medicine. SUBSTANCE: method involves concurrently measuring leukocytic elastase level, elastase-like activity in blood serum and cation protein contents in plasma neutrophils. Leukocytic elastase activity is measured in spectrophotometric way by releasing it in advance by means of tris-HCl buffer from complex containing α 1 - proteinase inhibitor. N-BOC-L-Alanine p-nitrophenyl ester is used as substratum. Elastase-like activity is measured with the same substratum being used. Cation protein contents in plasma neutrophils is determined by staining proteins with stable green with the cells damage followed and optical density of the samples measured by means of scanning photometer. Leukocytic elastase activity being less than 3.1 units/ml, blood serum elastase-like activity being less than 183 MU/ml and cation protein contents being less than 7 conditional units, low activity tuberculosis is diagnosed, higher values of at least one of the indices being observed, active pulmonary tuberculosis is diagnosed. EFFECT: high level of reproducibility and information capacity.