16 All PTB patients received a standard 4-drug regimen consisting of daily isoniazid, rifampicin, ethambutol, and pyrazinamide (HREZ) in the 2-month intensive phase and daily HRE in the subsequent continuation phase. Ethambutol might be omitted if the drug susceptibility testing revealed an isoniazid- and rifampicin-susceptible strain. This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the NTUH and written informed consent was obtained from all patients. Peripheral blood was collected from patients when the diagnosis of PTB was established. Serum was obtained

by centrifugation of the blood samples at 3000 rpm for 15 min at 4 °C and then frozen at −20 °C until assay. PCT was measured by Elecsys BRAHMS PCT electrochemiluminescence immunoassay (BRAHMS Diagnostica, Berlin, Germany). The normal range of PCT is <0.5 ng/mL. CRP

was determined by CRP-Latex (II) SEIKEN High Sensitivity click here Assay (Denka Seiken Co., Tokyo, Japan) with a normal range of <5 mg/L. The levels of serum sTREM-1 were measured using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Human TREM-1 Quantikine ELISA Kit; R&D Systems, Minneapolis, MN). The technicians performing the assays were blinded as to the clinical status of the patients. All of the tests were performed in duplicate. On the diagnosis of PTB, the following items were recorded for each patient: demographics, body mass Epacadostat index, smoking status, excessive alcohol consumption (defined as daily consumption of more than or equal to 60 g), prior history of TB, comorbidities, blood tests, microbiologic results, and Branched chain aminotransferase radiographic findings. Chest radiographs were interpreted by two board-certified pulmonologists blinded to clinical parameters and treatment outcomes. The radiographic extent of disease was classified as minimal, moderately advanced, and far advanced based on the classification of the National Tuberculosis and Respiratory Disease Association.17 If there was discordance, it was resolved by consensus. The primary outcome of interest was all-cause mortality within 6 months and other outcomes investigated included

2-month mortality and sputum culture conversion at 2 months. All patients were followed up for 6 months after the diagnosis of PTB was made, or until death or loss to follow-up. Data were presented as mean ± standard deviation or number (percentage) of patients. Comparisons between groups were done using a χ2 test or Fisher’s exact test for categoric variables and the Student’s t-test for continuous variables. The discriminative power of PCT, CRP, and sTREM-1 for 6-month mortality was assessed through comparing areas under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves using the Stata Version 10.0 (Stata Co., College Station, TX). The optimal cutoff for predicting mortality was determined by the least squares method. The patients were dichotomized into two groups based on the upper limit of normal or the optimal cutoff if the former was not available.