Laryngeal Tuberculosis in Pregnant Women: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Abstract

Tuberculosis is the most frequent granulomatous disease but the involvement of the larynx is rare. Immunosuppressed patients have a higher risk of developing this clinical form due to primoinfection or reactivation of latent tuberculosis. It is common to confuse the diagnosis of laryngeal tuberculosis with laryngeal cancer because they have similar macroscopic lesions and both produce dysphonia of chronic evolution. We present the case of a pregnant woman with chronic dysphonia, dysphagia, and odynophagia, diagnosed initially with laryngeal cancer after the first laryngoscopy. However, the patient also presented with fever, productive cough, weight loss, and dyspnea. The sputum sample showed a positive result for acid-fast bacilli (AFB) test; chest X-ray was showed bibasal nodular lesions with a predominance of right hemithorax and reticular opacities in left apex. A new laryngoscopy revealed a mamelonated tumor in the arytenoid cartilage, which led to the initiation of the antituberculous treatment without confirming the diagnosis by biopsy, with clinical improvement and no serious sequelae at the end of treatment. The reason for presenting this case is to consider the possibility of tuberculosis in areas of high endemicity, in patients who have a laryngeal tumor of probable neoplastic etiology, and that a biopsy is not necessary for the diagnosis of laryngeal tuberculosis in cases associated with pulmonary symptomatology.