Hepatobiliary tuberculosis.

Hepatobiliary tuberculosis refers to the localized form of hepatic tuberculosis and is a distinct entity in which hepatobiliary involvement overwhelmingly dominates the clinical picture. Presentations are often delayed, and manifestations can be nonspecific. Fever is the most common symptom followed by abdominal pain, and hepatomegaly is the most common abnormality found on clinical examination. Abnormalities of the liver function tests are non-specific and hence not diagnostic. Ultrasound or computed tomography reveals single or complex masses, and guided biopsy is diagnostic either by demonstrating caseating granuloma or the organism by staining and culture. Treatment is with standard first-line antituberculous drugs. Endoscopic stenting gives an excellent outcome for symptomatic biliary strictures. The outcome in patients infected with Human Immunodeficiency virus depends on the level of underlying immunosuppression.

Hepatic pathology in AIDS: a pathological study from Mumbai, India.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the spectrum of hepatic disorders in AIDS, liver specimens from 171 patients (155 autopsies and 16 biopsies) were reviewed. METHODS: A retrospective and prospective study of 171 autopsy and biopsy specimens was carried out at a tertiary level hospital in Mumbai, India. RESULTS: Of the patients included in the study, 127 (74%) were male and 44 (26%) were female. The heterosexual route was the predominant mode of HIV transmission, identified in 163 (95%) patients. A total of 99 of 171 patients (58%) showed significant pathological lesions, and the most common pathological processes involving the liver appeared to be secondary to infections. None of our patients showed isolated infectious diseases of the liver. The spectrum of liver diseases identified was as follows: tuberculosis in 70 patients (41%), cryptococcosis in eight (5%), cytomegalovirus infection in six (3%), hepatitis B infection in five (3%), candidiasis in one (0.5%), malaria in one (0.5%), cirrhosis in six (3%), amyloidosis in one (0.5%) and primary hepatic lymphoma in one (0.5%). CONCLUSIONS: AIDS patients were found to have a high prevalence of underlying hepatic abnormalities. The spectrum of disease among patients with AIDS in India differs from that in developed countries. Our results suggest that hepatic tuberculosis is more common in AIDS than previously recognized, and that liver specimens should be examined routinely for the presence of acid-fast bacilli.

[Portal and splenic veins thrombosis reveling a miliary tuberculosis of the liver]. / Une thrombose portale et splénique révelant une tuberculose miliaire du foie.

The etiologies of the portal vein trombosis are dominated by the neoplasic forms with hepatocellular carcinoma; we report a rare case of portal and splenic veins thrombosis revealing a liver military tuberculosis occuring in a HIV 1 infected patient. A 42 years old senegalese woman with no personal or family history of thrombosis was admitted for abdominal upper right quadran, and epigastric pain, with fever and important weight loss. Ultrasound identified endoluminal echogenic images in the portal and splenic veins. There were no lymph nodes or liver tumor. Evaluations of proteins C and S were normal and there was no anticardiolipin antibody. In searching the aetiology of the thrombosis, a liver biopsy was performed, and showed a miliary tuberculosis. an HIV 1 infection was later on diagnosed. The antituberculosis treatment associated with heparine therapy was successful, the thrombosis resolved entirely. This portal and splenic veins thromboses occuring on a miliary tuberculosis of the liver seems to be an exceptional situation. We did not found in the literature a similar case.lt points out the interset of liver biopsy in searching the aetiology and the early heparine therapy set up