Disseminated Tuberculosis Masquerading as Metastatic Malignancy in an Immunocompetent Adult
Department of Internal Medicine, Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Corresponding Author: Mondal D, Doctus Journal of Clinical Medicine.
Abstract
A 44-year-old immunocompetent man presented with three months of weight loss, night sweats and multifocal skeletal pain. Contrast imaging demonstrated multiple hepatic and vertebral lesions with mediastinal lymphadenopathy, and the initial radiological impression was metastatic carcinoma of unknown primary. Tumour markers were normal. Image-guided biopsy of a vertebral lesion showed caseating granulomata with acid-fast bacilli, and nucleic acid amplification confirmed rifampicin-sensitive Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The patient responded to standard four-drug therapy with radiological resolution at six months. This case underlines that disseminated tuberculosis can reproduce the imaging signature of metastatic disease in a host with no identifiable immunosuppression, and that tissue diagnosis should precede any oncological commitment.
Keywords
Disseminated Tuberculosis; Metastatic Malignancy; Diagnostic Pitfall; Granuloma; Case Report; Immunocompetent
How to Cite
Mondal D and Ghoshal S. “Disseminated Tuberculosis Masquerading as Metastatic Malignancy in an Immunocompetent Adult”. Doctus Journal of Clinical Medicine 3.7 (2026): 140-145.
Copyright and Licence
© 2026 Mondal D. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.