Foreign Body Aspiration and Tuberculosis: Possible Misdiagnosis

Childhood tuberculosis (TB) is common in developing countries whereas foreign body aspiration is relatively less frequently diagnosed. This report is of a child contact (same household) of a smear-positive index case who presented with suggestive clinical features; and was admitted as a case of pulmonary TB; but subsequently found to have an aspirated foreign body was accounting for his symptoms. Due to the similarity in the clinical features of a delayed clinical presentation of foreign body aspiration with pulmonary TB; clinicians attending to children with chronic respiratory pathology in a TB-endemic area should be mindful of the possibility of a foreign body in the airway and should always carefully review chest radiographs