Periocular tuberculosis

ABSTRACT

Tuberculosis has reemerged as a serious public health problem in recent years. The periorcular manifestations of tuberculosis are uncommon and diverse. We present two cases of periocular tuberculosis. One patient had a history of painless non-healing ulcer in the right periorbital region inferiorly and temporal fossa. Initially, it was on inferior side and, later on same type of lesion occurred in temporal fossa. Both the lesions developed communication in the form of sinus. Other patient was referred with the suspicion of chronic dacryocystitis with history of watering and painless swelling since 9 months and not responding to systemic antibiotics. Both cases had no known history of systemic tuberculosis, only the periorbital findings were presenting manifestations of systemic tuberculosis. In both cases anti-tuberculosis regimen was advised. In conclusion, ocular tuberculosis can have variable clinical manifestations and occasionally appears as a dacryocystitis or non-healing ulcer in periorbital region. A high degree of clinical suspicion is important in cases not responding to antibiotics