[Tuberculous peritonitis. Description of 2 cases associated with another infection and literature review]

The authors report two cases of peritoneal tuberculosis observed in Belgium: a 28-year-old black man, immigrant from Ghana and a 24-year-old caucasian woman. In both patients, tuberculosis was associated with another infection. The first patient had a retroperitoneal amoebic cyst and in the second patient Chlamydia trachomatis was found with Koch bacillus in the ascitic fluid. Both patients were successfully treated with appropriate antibiotics. Following the review of recent literature, it appears that the incidence of extrapulmonary tuberculosis is increasing in the industrialized part of the world, peritoneal tuberculosis now representing 0.5% of all cases of tuberculosis. Mortality approaches 7%. The diagnosis is difficult and should be evoked more often in order to be confirmed by appropriate means, such as ascitic fluid adenosine desaminase, bacteriology and peritoneoscopy.