Abdominal tuberculosis in Britain

Abstract

A series of fifteen patients with abdominal tuberculosis, managed personally by two clinicians over a five-year period, is presented. These fall into three broad groups: tuberculous peritonitis, gastrointestinal tuberculosis and tuberculous hepatitis. In more than half of the patients the chest radiographs were normal and three patients had negative tuberculin reactions. In emphasizing the fact that abdominal tuberculosis is not longer a rarity in Britain, attention is drawn to the many different ways in which the disease may present. One patient in the series, who presented as a possible case of cholera, had duodeno-colic fistula (only the third proven case in the literature) and two other patients presented with jaundice due to hepatic tuberculosis, again a rare form of abdominal tuberculosis.