Meningitis tuberculosa

Abstract

Meningeal tuberculosis is one the the most serious forms of the disease. The case of a BCG unvaccinated 13 months old infant who presented with seizures, unconsciousness and comma while he was been studied because of pulmonary symptoms. Diagnosis was ultimately confirmed by isolation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from gastric content cultures 90 days later. In children less than 5 years old, incubation period of meningeal tuberculosis may be as short as three months. In Chile where BCG vaccination is routinely performed to newborn infants this farm of the disease is rather infrequent but physicians should be alert to this possibility because prognosis depends critically on timely diagnosis and treatment. Due to low sensibility of specific microbiological tests, initial diagnosis must be based on epidemiologycal, clinical, cerebrospinal fluid cytochemical analysis and neuroimages findings.