These findings indicate that endothelial cells are a possible source of extracellular HMGB1 that could be inhibited by atorvastatin. The decrease in IL-8 levels in supernatants of activated HUVEC by atorvastatin was used as a comparator since it is already known that statins inhibit mRNA expression of IL-8 in activated HUVEC. Inhibition of HMGB1 release by activated HUVEC points to Ginsenoside-Ro another potential anti-inflammatory effect of statins on vascular endothelium. The actual mechanism of inhibition of HMGB1 release by HUVEC still needs further elucidation. HMGB1 levels were also lower in GPA patients on prednisolone therapy. Previous studies have demonstrated that corticosteroids can reduce extracellular release of HMGB1 by monocytes in vitro and they can also reduce HMGB1 expression and circulating levels in vivo. However, these findings were not confirmed in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. In conclusion, no association was observed between subclinical carotid atherosclerosis and HMGB1 while sRAGE was negatively associated with carotid IMT in GPA. Statin use was associated with lower HMGB1 levels suggesting an additional anti-inflammatory property of statins. As subclinical atherosclerosis was similar between patients and controls, we suggest that development of premature atherosclerosis in GPA patients might be postponed by sRAGE and use of statins or prednisolone. Since our study had a relatively low number of patients and had a crosssectional design, further longitudinal studies are needed to evaluate if reduction of serum HMGB1 levels might be important in CV risk management in GPA. Tuberculosis remains a major global health problem. In 2012, an estimated 8.6 million people developed TB and 1.3 million died from the disease. Accurate and rapid diagnosis of TB is vitally important in establishing appropriate clinical management and infection control measures. Currently, the most common method for TB diagnosis worldwide is sputum smear microscopy, the sensitivity of which is notoriously poor, particularly in human immunodeficiency virus �Cpositive patients. Culture, the gold standard diagnostic method, is highly sensitive but takes between two and six weeks to obtain a result. To address the need for rapid and sensitive diagnosis of TB, a number of nucleic 
acid amplification assays have been invented;however, they are still not routinely applied in developing countries due to their high cost, complicated procedures, insufficient laboratory facilities, and a shortage of skilled technologists. Loop-mediated isothermal amplification is a novel nucleic acid amplification method that does not require an expensive thermocycler or detection system. TB-LAMP is a new manual TB detection method based on the LAMP platform from Eiken Chemical Company in Japan. TB-LAMP has several features that make it a ractive as a diagnostics platform for resource-poor se ings: it is fast, isothermal, robust to inhibitors and reaction conditions that usually adversely affect polymerase chain reaction methods, and it Sipeimine generates a result that can be detected with the naked eye. From 2007 to 2010, Eiken Chemical Company and Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics successfully developed a next-generation TB-LAMP kit, which has a procedure for ultra rapid DNA extraction.