Tuberculosis Of The Head And Neck
Tuberculosis is still one of the major causes of illness and death worldwide. According to the latest WHO report in 2006 there were 9.2 million new cases and 1.7 million deaths from tuberculosis, of which 0.7 million cases and 0.2 million deaths were in HIV-positive people . Asia and Africa account for more than 85% of global cases. In the European Union countries the epidemiological situation of
tuberculosis is satisfactory. In most of them the incidence of
tuberculosis is less than 15 cases per 100 000 people. But in Poland, Hungary, Portugal, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania the incidence still exceeds the rate of 20 cases per 100 000 people. There were reported 22.5 new cases of
tuberculosis per 100 000 people in our country in 2006. Commonly known groups of high risk of
tuberculosis are: people with HIV infection, people who had contact with a sputum positive patient with tuberculosis, people who abuse alcohol, drug addicts, homeless, immigrants from countries of high incidence of tuberculosis, patients with chronic diseases, for example diabetes, malignant neoplasm, heart insufficiency, renal insufficiency, different immunosuppressive diseases and treatments . In 90%
tuberculosis is located in the lungs. Extrapulmonary cases account for only 10%. Head and neck region is not a common localization of tuberculosis; however, due to the great number of lymph nodes it is not casuistic and should be taken into consideration during the diagnostic process. The aim of our study was to review the clinical and epidemiological presentation of
tuberculosis in otolaryngology practice.
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