Tuberculosis--frequency and differential diagnosis--analysis of cases in Pakistan

Tuberculosis is highly prevalent in Pakistan and the numbers are on increase each year. Cervical lymphadenopathy, a common finding in tuberculosis and other inflammatory, infectious and malignant etiologies, is commonly encountered in hospital setting in Karachi, Pakistan. Signs and symptoms of tuberculosis are blood tinged sputum, weight loss, night sweats, loss of appetite and weakness. A through history, complete physical examination and investigations are needed to diagnose tuberculosis.

To determine the burden of tuberculosis in cases of cervical lymphadenopathy and to find the most common etiologies of cervical lymphadenopathy in hospital setup in Karachi, Pakistan.

Patients with cervical lymphadenopathy attending the surgical outpatient department of Jinnah Post Graduate Center, Karachi, Pakistan were conveniently sampled for this study without age and gender limitations. This cross sectional, descriptive study was conducted from January 2010 to January 2011.

A total of 250 patient cases with cervical lymphadenopathy were studied. The age group with the highest number of patients was between 21 to 40 years, which included 97 females and 21 males. The patients with unilateral single cervical lymph node swelling were found to be 13.2%, while 86.8 % patients had multiple bilateral lymph node swellings. Tuberculosis was found in majority of patients, 63.6% followed by inflammatory hyperplasia which was present in 28.4% patients, other causes included lymphoma 5.2% and metastasis 2.8%.

Tuberculosis is the most common etiology of cervical lymphadenopathy, followed by inflammatory hyperplasia, lymphoma and metastasis.