Renal tuberculosis mimicking renal malignancy in Sudanese adolescence

Renal tuberculosis (RTB) has no specific presentation and symptoms can be absent in up to 8% of cases in developing countries. Most patients present with symptoms like fever, burning micturition, pyuria, weight loss, and loin pain. In very rare occasions RTB can present as a renal mass mimicking renal cell carcinoma RCC.

We report a case that was initially diagnosed as renal cell carcinoma and histopathology revealed renal tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis is more common than renal cell carcinoma, the WHO states that 1 in every three individuals have TB worldwide, but something to keep in mind is that the incidence of RCC is increasing by the rate of 1% since the year 2006. Hence uncommon presentations of common diseases are more common than common presentations of uncommon diseases, then when doctors encounter a patient who is presenting with renal mass especially in countries that are endemic with TB a probability of uncommon presentation of UGTB should be considered to avoid missing the chance of treating a medically curable condition. Most of the reported cases in the literature about pseudo tumor presentation of UGTB indicate that most of the cases presented with unilateral mass mimicking RCC and TB is detected after radical nephrectomy.

RTB can mimics RCC clinically and radiologically, which creates a diagnostic challenge. The chance of diagnosing renal TB in a patient presenting with renal mass is extremely lower than the chance of missing it for RCC, this because of the lack of evidence-based diagnostic approaches.