FIG. 1.

(a) M. tuberculosis-induced TNF-α production in the cross-sectional analysis was highest in untreated TB patients, decreased during therapy, and was lowest at the end of TB therapy, closely approaching the values measured in control subjects, correlating with the TB disease-related inflammatory process. A smaller set of patients was followed up in a longitudinal-observation study. No significant differences in TNF-α production were observed between the mild-to-moderate TB (b) and advanced-TB (c) groups before, during, and at the end of the therapy. Each dot in the cross-sectional study represents one individual. A horizontal bar indicates the median of each group. A dashed line indicates the lower detection limit of the assay. A statistically significant difference (P < 0.05) is indicated by the asterisk (Mann-Whitney U test).