Tuberculosis of the knee

Abstract

According to the WHO in 2019, an estimated 5.6 million men, 3.2 million women and 1.2 million children fell ill with Tuberculosis (Tb). In our country in 2018, 6094 cases were reported with an incidence of 34.53 per 100,000 inhabitants. Osteoarticular tuberculosis (OAT) is the third most frequent location after pleural and lymph nodes, 1-3% of all Tb cases. It manifests with an insidious clinic with few specific local and systemic signs and symptoms, for which imaging, laboratory and arthrocentesis studies must be carried out for its diagnosis. Surgical treatment includes debridement, synovectomy, arthrodesis, and amputation. Success has been demonstrated with primary joint arthroplasty.
Material and methods: We present the case of a 67-year-old female patient with rheumatoid arthritis, who underwent arthroscopy of the right knee due to meniscopathy, who, after the surgical procedure, did not hace adequate evolution, iniatially presented fistulas in the distal third of the leg and later in one of the portals, for which she was again subjected to arthrotomy for drainage of caseous-type yellowish secretion, when performing the histopathology and laboratory examinations, the infection by
Mycobacterium Tuberculosis was confirmed late, after surgical treatment (surgical cleaning, debridement and wide synovectomy) and of the specific antibiotic treatment, presented good evolution.