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Review
. 2015 Dec;7(6):331-8.
doi: 10.1177/1756287215592604.

Diseases masking and delaying the diagnosis of urogenital tuberculosis

Ekaterina Kulchavenya  1 , Denis Kholtobin  2
Affiliations
Review

Diseases masking and delaying the diagnosis of urogenital tuberculosis

Ekaterina Kulchavenya et al. Ther Adv Urol. 2015 Dec.

Abstract

As urogenital tuberculosis (UGTB) has no specific clinical features, it is often overlooked. To identify some of the reasons for misdiagnosing UGTB we performed a systematic review. We searched in Medline/PubMed papers with keywords 'urogenital tuberculosis, rare' and 'urogenital tuberculosis, unusual'. 'Urogenital tuberculosis, rare' presented 230 articles and 'urogenital tuberculosis, unusual' presented 81 articles only, a total of 311 papers. A total of 34 papers were duplicated and so were excluded from the review. In addition, we excluded from the analysis 33 papers on epidemiological studies and literature reviews, papers describing non-TB cases and cases of TB another than urogenital organs (48 articles), cases of congenital TB (three articles), UGTB as a case of concomitant disease (16 articles), and UGTB as a complication of BCG-therapy (eight articles). We also excluded 22 articles dedicated to complications of the therapy, which made a total of 164 articles. Among the remaining 147 articles we selected 43 which described really unusual, difficult to diagnose cases. We also included in our review a WHO report from 2014, and one scientific monograph on TB urology. The most frequent reasons for delayed diagnosis were absence typical clinical features of UGTB, and the tendency of UGTB to hide behind the mask of another disease. We can conclude that actually UGTB is not rare disease, but it is often an overlooked disease. The main reasons for delayed diagnosis are vague, atypical clinical features and a low index of suspicion.

Keywords: bladder; cancer; diagnosis; prostate; tuberculosis; urogenital.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest statement: None of the contributing authors have any conflict of interest, including specific financial interests or relationship and affiliation relevant to the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Caseous TB inflammation of the testis and epididymitis: section of operation material.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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