[Bilateral pleural thickening pseudo-tumour due to tuberculosis]

The authors report the case of a 20 year old Senegalese woman in whom pulmonary and bone tuberculosis presented as bilateral, lobulated pleural thickening without effusion, associated with a vertebral abscess at D 9-10. The diagnosis was obtained by histological examination of a CT guided pleural biopsy. After 12 months treatment there was complete resolution of the pleural disease. Tuberculous pleural disease is rarely bilateral and such presentation as a pseudo-tumour is very rare in Europe. Anatomically the pleural disease would seem to have been secondary to the vertebral disease as the result of direct spread.