SURGICAL TREATMENT FOR COMPLICATIONS OF ABDOMINAL TUBERCULOSIS

Abdominal tuberculosis (TB) has been considered as a fatal and untreatable disease for years. Before the discovery of effective medical therapy for TB (TBMT) there was no hope for recovery of patients with abdominal TB. Even when such a patient recovered, it was ascribed to false diagnosis and not to true cure.1 The underlying mechanisms for this disease has not yet been totally elucidated, but the probable route of infection is the involvement of other organs especially lungs and transmission of Mycobacterium TB (MTB) through blood or swallowed sputum. Direct invasion from adjacent structures might be another route of infection.