Abstract
Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis; it is a public health problem worldwide and one of the leading causes of mortality. Since December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented health challenges and disrupted the TB health services, especially in high-burden countries with ever-increasing prevalence. Extrapulmonary and even pulmonary TB are an important cause of nonspecific clinical and radiological manifestations and can masquerade as any benign or malignant medical case, thus causing disastrous conditions and diagnostic dilemmas. Clinical manifestations and routine laboratory tests have limitations in directing physicians to diagnose TB. Medical-imaging examinations play an essential role in detecting tissue abnormalities and early suspecting diagnosis of TB in different organs. Radiologists and physicians should be familiar with and aware of the radiological manifestations of TB to contribute to the early suspicion and diagnosis of TB. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the common radiologic patterns of pulmonary and extrapulmonary TB. This article will be beneficial for radiologists, medical students, chest physicians, and infectious-disease doctors who are interested in the diagnosis of TB.
Highlights
Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Due to the significant role of medical imaging in the diagnosis of TB, we introduce this radiological pictorial review to elucidate the common various radiological patterns of pulmonary and extrapulmonary TB
All of the conventional radiography, computed tomography (CT), ultrasonography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positron emission tomography CT (PET-CT) methods have a role in the diagnosis of TB and can assist the physicians in their diagnosis of a wide range of diseases in different parts of the body
Summary
Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Infection occurs through prolonged or repeated exposure to Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmitted by airborne droplets from the coughs or sneezes of an actively infected person. The lung is the most common site of TB infection; it can involve any other organ in the body [1,3]. 90% of exposed individuals carry the bacteria but harbor the infection at a subclinical level with no clinical, radiological, or microbiological manifestations, a condition known as latent infection. The remaining 5% of infected individuals with effective immunity can control the primary infection, but viable mycobacteria remain dormant and reactivate; this is known as post-primary or reactivated TB [3,4]
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