Tuberculosis is a disease with high morbidity and mortality worldwide. Patients with tuberculosis may present symptoms that simulate neoplasms, with images remarkably similar to those caused by neoplastic nodules. We present a 31-year-old patient, native of Bolivia but residing in Argentina, who consulted for a painless tumor on the lateral chest wall that had increased in size in recent months. His CT-scan (Fig. 1A) showed a 10.5cm×6.6cm mass adherent to the chest wall, dependent on it, with no clear cleavage plane, growing to the surface and with isolated pulmonary lesions. It was decided to perform a surgical excision (Fig. 1B) and the final diagnosis was giant tuberculoma, the patient discharged two days later. He completed treatment with tuberculostatics without relapse and remains free of disease 4 years after surgery. There are not many patients with tuberculosis diagnosed after surgery and even fewer with giant chest wall tuberculomas.1,2 Definitive diagnosis generated from surgery is not frequent, since clinical suspicion and complementary examinations usually support alternative diagnoses; however, this case could reflect an incomplete diagnostic approach to this pathology, related to social factors and neglect of the prevalence of tuberculosis.
Funding
No type of funding, public or private, has been received.
Conflicts of interestThe authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
