Cytodiagnosis of tuberculosis of the skull by fine needle aspiration cytology: A case report

Close to one-third of the world's population is believed to be infected wit h tuberculosis, with the vast majority being in the developing world. Howev er, even in the developed world, the incidence of this disease has been ste adily increasing. Tuberculosis is very common in the Indian subcontinent, b ut at the same time tuberculous infection of the skull is rare and very few cases have been reported. We report a child who presented with a swelling of the frontal bone of the skull. Fine needle aspiration yielded the cytolo gical diagnosis of tuberculosis on the basis of a necrotising granulomatous process with acid-fast bacilli detected on Ziehl Neelsen stain. This proce dure obviated the need for an operative procedure and the patient responded to anti-tuberculous therapy. As the incidence of tuberculous infection is on the increase, both in the developed and in the developing world, the imp ortance of diagnosis by newer non-invasive techniques like fine needle aspi ration cytology cannot be overemphasised. To the best of our knowledge, thi s is the first report of its kind in the world literature.