Intracranial Tuberculosis in Uganda: a Post-mortem Survey

Abstract

Fifty-one patients with intracranial tuberculosis were found in a series of 5541 ccropsies carried out in Uganda. Twenty-one of these were not diagnosed priortonecropsy .There were forty-four patients with tuberculous meningitis of who m 2 5 % had infarcts of the central nervous system. Nine tuberculomas were found , five had produced signs of a space-occupying lesion. Tuberculoma accounted for 9-8 % o f cases coming to post-mortem with signs of a space-occupying lesion, if abscess and haemorrhage are excluded. Extracranial tuberculosis was detectable in eight out of nine patients with tuberculoma, but in only one out of forty nine patients with intracranial neoplasms. A detailed search for evidence of extracrania tuberculosis should be made in all patients presenting with intracranial spaceoccupying lesions, particularly if under the age of 40