A Clinical Study of Tuberculous Cervical Lymphadenitis

ABSTRACT

A clinical review of 212 cases of tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis during the past 6 years from January 1990 to December 1995 was made at the Department of General Surgery, Eul ji Medical College Hospital,Taejeon. The results are as follows 1) The age of peak incidence was the 3rd decade (43.3%), and females predominated over males by 3.1 1. 2) The time interval from the onset of symptoms to the first visit was less than 3 months in 53.3% of the patients. 3) The location of lymphadenitis was the right neck in 59.9%, the left neck 38.7%, and bilateral in 1.4% of the patients. 4) Signs on the first visit were a mass, a cold abscess and/or a discharge. A palpable mass was the most frequent symptom (86.8%). 5) The incidence of associated pulmonary tuberculosis was 26.9%. 6) Seventy patients (33.0%) had a past history of tuberculosis. Among them, 55.7% had lymphadenitis, 28.6% pulmonary tuberculosis, and 15.7% medical problems at other sites. 7) Treatments of tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis were chemotherapy alone (68.4%) or surgical management combined with chemotherapy (31.6%). The surgical treatments included excision, incision and drainage, and neck dissection in 17.5%, 13.2%, and 0.9% of the patients, respectively. 8) The rate of recurrence was 3.1% (5 cases) for 160 cases, among them, 1.2% (2 cases) involved chemotherapy alone and 1.9% (3 cases) surgery with chemotherapy. The other 52 cases were lost from follow up.