Large bilateral tubercular pyosalpinx in a young woman with genitourinary malformation: a case report

Tuberculosis is a chronic infectious disease, and the morbidity associated with it has major health implications. When tuberculosis affects the genital organs of young females, it has the devastating effect of causing irreversible damage to their fallopian tubes, resulting in a possible tubercular pyosalpinx and infertility. However, the disease often remains silent or presents with very few specific symptoms. In adolescents and young women, tuberculosis can also present with hypogastric recurrent symptoms and affectation of the general state, but because in our country genital tuberculosis is uncommon, its diagnosis is unlikely.

We describe the case of an 18-year-old Spanish woman who had been sexually active for 1 year, nulliparous, who presented with hypogastric discomfort and repeated urinary symptoms complicated with pelvic inflammatory disease after a hysterosalpingography. Genital tuberculosis was not suspected. The echographical findings and tumor markers mimicked those of ovarian tumors, and she was also a carrier of a genitourinary malformation (pelvic kidney and septate uterus). A laparotomy was performed and revealed large pelvic abscesses. On her right adnexum, the large pyosalpinx was free (floating pyosalpinx). Drainage, adhesiolysis and bilateral salpingectomy were performed, and cultures were taken. Histopathological study showed bilateral granulomatous abscessificated salpingitis with suspicion of genital tuberculosis, and cultures were positive for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. She followed a tuberculostatic treatment for 6 months. Eight years later, she presents with normal menstruations and is waiting for an in vitro fertilization cycle.

No other reported case showing similar association of genital tuberculosis and genitourinary malformation was found. The associated genitourinary malformation in this case probably has no relation but it could contribute to diagnosis delay and/or to reactivate the pathology. The hysterosalpingographical findings and the observation of a floating pyosalpinx must alert the clinician to genital tuberculosis, but the diagnosis is suggested by the histopathological studies and confirmed by cultures. In this case study, the necessity of considering the risk of pelvic inflammatory disease reactivation after hysterosalpingography, of suspecting the diagnosis of genital tuberculosis and of establishing the differential diagnosis with ovarian tumors in the presence of large pyosalpinges is highlighted.