Distinctive Immuno-Inflammatory Pattern in Tuberculous Lymphadenitis: A Retrospective Cohort Study with Propensity Score Matching

作者：Muxing Chen, Fan Zhang, Zhixiong Yao, Yiping Liu, Di Wu, Xiaohong Chen, Youfei Lin · 发表于：Infection and Drug Resistance · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.2147/idr.s538824 · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：Mycobacterium research and diagnosis、Tuberculosis Research and Epidemiology、Diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis

Purpose: Tuberculous lymphadenitis (TBL) represents a common form of extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB), yet its immunological characteristics compared to other EPTB forms remain poorly characterized. We aimed to compare immunological parameters between TBL and non-TBL patients to elucidate site-specific immune phenotypes. Patients and Methods: We conducted a retrospective single-center study at Fuzhou Pulmonary Hospital, China (April 2018-April 2024). From 1,408 EPTB patients screened, 862 met inclusion criteria after excluding immunocompromised patients, those with incomplete data, or age < 18 years. Patients were stratified into TBL (n=337) and non-TBL EPTB (n=525) groups. To mitigate confounding, we implemented 1:1 propensity score matching based on demographic factors (age, sex) and nutritional status (BMI, hemoglobin, albumin), yielding 323 matched pairs. We compared inflammatory markers (neutrophil count, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio [NLR]) and immunological parameters (lymphocyte count and T lymphocyte subsets: CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, CD45+) between groups using Mann–Whitney U -tests and Spearman correlation analyses. Results: In matched cohorts, TBL patients demonstrated markedly higher lymphocyte counts than non-TBL patients (1.27 vs 1.04× 10 9 /L, P < 0.001) despite comparable neutrophil counts (4.45 vs 4.49× 10 9 /L, P =0.724), resulting in significantly lower NLR (3.58 vs 4.38, P =0.001). T lymphocyte subset analysis revealed substantially elevated absolute counts in...