Abstract
BackgroundThe aim of our study was to describe musculoskeletal system tuberculosis (TB) as a single-center experience.MethodsThis is a retrospective observational study conducted at a TB Dispensary in the east Mediterranean part of Turkey between 2004 and 2020. The clinical and demographic characteristics including age, gender, involvement location and duration of illness, presenting complaint, local examination findings, treatment outcome were retrieved and analyzed from the case files. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS Statistics version 17.0 (IBM). The normality of data analysed by using Kolmogorov-Smirnov. The descriptive statistics were reported as mean ± standard deviation, medians, and ranges (min-max).ResultsOverall, 31 patients (3.2 % of all TB cases) with a mean age of 44.2 ± 16.7 years had musculoskeletal tuberculosis. The mean duration of treatment was 12.9 ± 5.5 months. Of the 31 patients, six (19.4 %) had concomitant pulmonary TB. One of the patients was in the pediatrics age group, and two of them were in the geriatric group. The most affected area was the vertebra. The most common complaint of the patients was back pain and seen in 22 patients (70.9 %).ConclusionsThe physicians should be suspicious about the diagnosis of musculoskeletal TB disease. If the diagnosis and treatment are delayed, spinal damage and other consequences might be incurable.
Highlights
Tuberculosis (TB) is a chronic infectious disease mainly caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis
The diagnosis of musculoskeletal system TB can be challenging, for the physicians who are not familiar, because TB can present in atypical locations and mimic tumoral lesions [12]
The example images of a shoulder and thoracic vertebra TB are shown in Figs. 1 and 2, respectively
Summary
Tuberculosis (TB) is a chronic infectious disease mainly caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. TB is a public health problem, especially in underdeveloped or developing countries, and remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality [1]. As reported by World Health Organization (WHO), the estimated global incidence of TB cases was 10.0 million in 2018 [2]. In Turkey, as a developing country, the TB incidence More than 80 % of TB cases are pulmonary TB. Several manifestations of extra-pulmonary TB have been reported, including musculoskeletal system TB [5]. Pulmonary TB has been extensively covered in the literature [6,7,8], publications on musculoskeletal TB are relatively limited, and have been reported mostly in case reports [9,10,11]. The aim of our study was to describe musculoskeletal system tuberculosis (TB) as a single-center experience
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