Familial tuberculosis mimicking advanced ovarian cancer

Female genital tuberculosis cases with distinct clinical symptoms: Four case reports

BACKGROUND

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Genital TB (GTB) is a form of extrapulmonary TB that occurs more frequently in women, in whom it classically presents in association with menstrual irregularity, pregnancy loss and short and long-term sequelae especially infertility in infected women. Patients with GTB are usually young women diagnosed during workup for infertility. GTB is rare in postmenopausal women and responsible for only approximately 1% of postmenopausal bleeding. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the laboratory, clinical and demographic characteristics of female GTB cases.

CASE

We presented four female GTB cases with distinct clinical symptoms. All patients have no history of TB, and no acid-fast bacilli were seen in smears prepared from the clinical materials of the patients. Histopathological examinations revealed granulomatous inflammation in all patients.

CONCLUSION

In the light of the clinical features of these cases we aimed to emphasize that, female GTB must be taken into account in the patients with different clinical symptoms like postmenopausal bleeding, menometrorrhagia, infertility, and menstrual irregularities. We believe that these symptoms will be helpful for the diagnosis and treatment of female GTB.

Abdominopelvic Tuberculosis Secondary to a Nontuberculous Mycobacterium in an Immunocompetent Patient

Tuberculosis (TB) remained as one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide despite an overall decline in its incidence rate globally. Extrapulmonary TB is uncommon and only accounts for 10–20% of overall TB disease burden. Abdominopelvic TB is the sixth most common location of extrapulmonary TB. The symptoms and signs are often insidious and nonspecific. Diagnosing abdominopelvic TB can be very challenging at times and poses great difficulties to the clinician. Infection with nontuberculous Mycobacterium (NTM) is even rarer especially in an immunocompetent patient. We report a case of NTM in abdominopelvic TB. A 37-year-old foreign worker, para 3, presented with a one-week history of suprapubic pain associated with fever. An assessment showed presence of a right adnexal mass. She was treated as tuboovarian abscess with intravenous antibiotics. Unfortunately, she did not respond. She underwent exploratory laparotomy. Intraoperatively, features of the mass were suggestive of a right mature cystic teratoma with presence of slough and cheesy materials all over the abdominal cavity as well as presence of ascites. Diagnosis of NTM was confirmed with PCR testing using the peritoneal fluid. This case was a diagnostic dilemma due to the nonspecific clinical presentation. Management of such rare infection was revisited.

Fatal Pulmonary Embolism in the Setting of Immune Reconstitution Inflammatory Syndrome Attributed to Ovarian Tuberculosis

In developed countries, tuberculosis remains a health care challenge due to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and immigration from endemic regions. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 9557 new cases in 2015, with extrapulmonary involvement in 20.2% of the cases. We present a 33-year-old woman from Cape Town, South Africa, who developed abdominal pain and fever while working on a cruise ship. She sought medical where she underwent computed tomography of her chest, abdomen, and pelvis with findings suggestive of pulmonary tuberculosis and an 8.9-cm pelvic mass. HIV testing was positive and the patient was started on antiretroviral therapy. Bronchoscopy confirmed the presence of acid-fast bacilli, and she was started on rifampin, isoniazid, pyrazinamide, and ethambutol. She remained persistently febrile, raising suspicion for immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome. However, despite empiric antibiotics, the patient remained persistently febrile, tachycardic, and on day 10 of admission she went into ventricular fibrillation and expired. Autopsy revealed an occlusive thrombus in the left main pulmonary artery in addition to necrotizing granulomata in multiple organs and bilateral tubo-ovarian abscesses. Postmortem cultures for were positive for Mycobacterium tuberculosis, all consistent with disseminated Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Although previous reports underscore the association between tuberculosis and hypercoagulability, the exact mechanism remains unknown. In this article, we report a case of disseminated tuberculosis complicated by bilateral tubo-ovarian abscesses with fatal pulmonary thrombus formation.

Abdominopelvic Tuberculosis with a Frozen Section Analysis Consistent with Ovarian Cancer

Pelvic tuberculosis is a type of extrapulmonary tuberculosis. The disease is accompanied by clinical and laboratory findings which may be unspecific and present aspects of other diseases, including gynecological malignancies. In this report, the authors presented a case of pelvic tuberculosis associated with peritoneal tuberculosis in a young woman exhibiting imaging and tumor markers consistent with ovarian neoplasm. An intraoperative frozen section analysis detected atypical cells that were suggestive of ovarian borderline or malignant epithelial neoplasia. The pathological analysis showed granulomatous inflammation in the right ovary and fallopian tube with a pattern of mycobacteriosis that was consistent with the presence of mycobacteria morphologically compatible with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The patient had a complete remission after the use of antituberculosis drugs.

Ovarian tuberculosis mimicking a malignant tumour

There has been reported increased incidence of ovarian tuberculosis in the tropics since the advent of HIV/AIDS disease. We report a case of bilateral ovarian tuberculosis associated with a single right kidney of uncertain origin in an immunocompetent 15-year-old generally healthy-looking girl. Abdominopelvic scan was equivocal about the diagnosis of the lesion as it failed to differentiate it from malignancy. Tuberculin and histopathology were necessary to confirm the diagnosis of ovarian tuberculosis. Antituberculous medical therapy successfully resolved the disease.

Female genital tract tuberculosis presenting as ovarian cancer

BACKGROUND

Tuberculosis (TB) is still a major worldwide concern. There is no pathognomonic clinical feature or imaging findings for definite diagnosis of extra pulmonary TB. Therefore, TB involvement of Gastrointestinal or Genitourinary tract can be easily confused with peritoneal carcinomatosis and advanced ovarian carcinoma. Our aim is to emphasize the importance of considering the disease based upon the epidemiologic clues of the patients, while interpreting the positive results for a suspicious ovarian malignancy.

CASES

This paper illustrates 8 cases of ovarian or peritoneal tuberculosis, whose initial diagnoses were malignant processes of the GU tract.

CONCLUSION

Tuberculosis (TB) should be always being considered in the differential diagnosis of advanced ovarian cancer, especially in the regions that are endemic for the disease.