Clinical and laboratory profile of patients with tuberculosis/HIV coinfection at a national referral centre: a case series

This case series describes the clinical and laboratory profile of 15 patients with tuberculosis [TB] HIV coinfection admitted to a referral centre in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Most of the patients [13] were male; the mean age was 36.9 years. Intravenous drug use was the route of transmission for all males and heterosexual intercourse for the 2 females; 12 patients had a history of imprisonment. All patients had pulmonary TB; 13 were smear-positive and all except 1 had atypical radiological presentation. Drug-induced hepatitis occurred in 3 patients and 12 had hepatitis C coinfection. Five patients died. The mean CD4 count was 229.2 [SD 199.5] cells/mm[3] and 78.6% had CD4 count < 350. TB may be an AIDS-defining illness in this country

Tuberculosis of the breast: report of 4 clinical cases and literature review

Nearly 18% of tuberculosis [TB] cases have only extrapulmonary manifestations. Breast tuberculosis is a rare type of extrapulmonary TB. This paper reports 4 cases of breast TB confirmed either pathologically or mycobacteriologically or both. These reports showed that TB should always be considered first in the differential diagnosis of granulomatous mastitis in TB-endemic areas. Therapy included at least 6 months of anti-TB medication and surgery when indicated