Fine needle aspiration diagnosis of tuberculous lymphadenitis

The diagnosis and management of peripheral lymph node tuberculosis remains a major problem in most of the developing countries. We retrieved 584 cases of tuberculous lymphadenitis from a total 1124 lymph node aspirations done over a period of 3 years (1995-1998). Overall acid-fast bacillus positivity was 37.4%, being highest in the cases in which purulent material was aspirated. Fine needle aspiration (FNA) of tuberculous lymphadenopathy provided a high level of diagnostic accuracy as shown by 1.7% false negative and a zero false positive rate. FNA is reliable as an initial evaluating procedure for diagnosis of tuberculous lymphadenitis making it suitable for wider application in developing countries with scant resources.