Manifestations of Tuberculosis in Otorhinolaryngology Practice: A Retrospective Study Conducted in a Coastal City of South India

Tuberculosis (TB) of the head and neck has proved to be a diagnostic challenge for otorhinolarynologists around the world and is often misdiagnosed as cancer. To contribute to a better understanding of TB in the head and neck region by assessing its various manifestations, presentations, diagnostic techniques, risk factors, coexisting illnesses and treatment modalities. This was a retrospective study conducted over a 3 year period (2012–2014) in 2 hospitals in South India, among patients diagnosed to have TB of the head and neck. A semi structured proforma was used to capture information from the medical records pertaining to the various objectives of the study. Data was analysed using SPSS version 16.0 and results obtained were depicted as percentages. Chi-square test was used to find association between the variables and p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Among 104 patients with TB of the head and neck, the most common manifestation was found to be Tubercular Lymphadenitis (86.53%), followed by laryngeal TB, submandibular gland TB, deep neck space abscess and adenotonsillar TB. FNAC was found to be the gold standard for the diagnosis of TB lymphadenitis. 26% of the patients had coexisting HIV infection and 16.3% of the patients had associated pulmonary TB. More than 20% of the patients were smokers. Most patients were treated using ATT. Tuberculosis of head and neck is no longer uncommon. Pulmonary TB need not be associated nor is smoking a risk factor according to our study.