Genital tuberculosis in a HIV infected woman: a case report

The incidence of HIV-associated tuberculosis is increasing worldwide, especially in developing countries. HIV infected patients rapidly develop clinically significant disease, respond poorly to complete treatment and present with extrapulmonary tuberculosis. Although a relative increase of genital tuberculosis would be expected, this has not been reported. Probably, tuberculous systemic disease is diagnosed earlier, before genital tuberculosis occur. The present study is a report of case of a young African female patient, who was admitted with symptoms of acute pelvic inflammatory disease due to genital tuberculosis and proved to be HIV infected. The patient was managed by intravenous antibiotic administration, but since no clinical or laboratory improvement was achieved, a laparotomy and salpingooophorectomy was performed. Histopathology revealed tuberculosis and after that the patient proved to be HIV infected. Further investigation did not reveal pulmonary or other extragenital manifestation of tuberculosis. The only manifestation of HIV infection and genital tuberculosis was the symptoms of an acute pelvic inflammatory disease, which is extremely rare.