Immune responses and immunostimulation in tuberculosis therapy

Despite a reasonably extensive literature on cellular and humoral immune responses in tuberculous disease, abnormalities tend to be secondary rather than predisposing to disease. No discrete immune deficiency or failure, which would explain the progression from non-infection to infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis to tuberculous disease, has been identified. There is evidence that tuberculous disease occurs in a spectrum, analogous to leprosy, and it would seem that if immunostimulants, as adjuncts to standard therapy, are to be of any value in the treatment of tuberculosis, they should be used for non-reactive tuberculosis patients. The range of immunostimulants currently available tends to be indiscriminate in action and their targets in tuberculous disease largely uncertain; their role in therapy in discussed.