TUBERCULOUS PANCREATIC-ABSCESS IN AN HIV ANTIBODY-NEGATIVE PATIENT - CASE-REPORT AND REVIEW

Tuberculosis (TB) is most commonly diagnosed as a pulmonary disease; h owever, haematogenous spread of the organism can cause disease in any organ system. We report the case of a 30-y-old woman, Human Immunodefi ciency Virus (HIV) antibody-negative, who was diagnosed as having a pa ncreatic mass on computed tomographic (CT) scans. She underwent a lapa rotomy and the fluid drained from the mass was culture-positive for My cobacterium tuberculosis. We review the clinical details of 37 similar cases of pancreatic TB in the literature, where each patient's HIV an tibody status is negative or unknown. In this series 3 patients died ( 1 of these had commenced anti-TB therapy, the others had not) but the remaining 34 responded well to radiological-guided drainage and/or sur gical intervention and anti-TB therapy. TB should be considered in the differential diagnosis of a pancreatic mass, especially when associat ed with epigastric pain or discomfort and weight loss.