Extrapulmonary tuberculosis: a debilitating and often neglected public health problem.
Sudeep AdhikariAbhusani BhujuPublished in: BMJ case reports (2018)
We report a case of a 33-year-old woman from Nepal who presented to a hospital with paraplegia. She was found to have pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) with lumbar spine involvement, and bilateral psoas abscesses. She had no initial symptoms attributable to pulmonary involvement. Her delayed presentation to the hospital led to complication of TB spine, which compromised the life of this woman working as a labourer. Early diagnosis and treatment of extrapulmonary TB is essential. Awareness regarding symptoms of different forms of extrapulmonary TB and making diagnostic modalities such as CT scan, MRI or biopsy readily available through insurance schemes are some important measures to minimise the problem so that complications like paraplegia as in our patient with spinal TB can potentially be avoided.
Keyphrases
- mycobacterium tuberculosis
- pulmonary tuberculosis
- public health
- case report
- computed tomography
- healthcare
- contrast enhanced
- magnetic resonance imaging
- adverse drug
- pulmonary hypertension
- magnetic resonance
- acute care
- risk factors
- sleep quality
- image quality
- dual energy
- hepatitis c virus
- spinal cord injury
- health insurance
- human immunodeficiency virus
- positron emission tomography
- antiretroviral therapy