Tuberculosis of the cervical lymph nodes.

ABSTRACT

Analysis of 188 patients with pathological diagnosis of tuberculosis or findings consistent with tuberculosis of the cervical lymph nodes during the period 1985-1988 disclosed the following pertinent findings: (1) The histo-pathological diagnoses, based on findings of chronic granuloma with or without the presence of acid-fast bacilli (AFB) on staining, were “probable tuberculosis” in 38.8 percent of the cases, and “consistent with tuberculosis” in 61.2 percent of them. It is worthy of note that proof for AFB in the 1973 report (from the same laboratory) was available only in 1.58 percent of the cases.1 (2) The supraclavicular group was the frequently diseased of the lymph nodes as found in a previous study;1 this finding also conforms to the high incidence of palpable supraclavicular lymph nodes in pulmonary tuberculosis patients.5 This persistent prevalence of the site of tuberculous involvement may be used as evidence in support of early post-primary haematogenous dissemination of the pathogenic organism, rather than the less occurring lymphogenous spread from the site of upper digestive tract infection, as recently suggested.4