Abstract
Background: The prostate is one of the most common sites for cancer and in contrast prostate tuberculosis seems to be a rare disease. Mycobacterium tuberculosis and cancer look like antagonists; based on this principle BCG-therapy for bladder cancer was established.
Materials and Methods: A retrospective study of primary tuberculosis diagnosed between January to December 2015 was conducted in the Department of Pathology/Forensic Medicine, University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada, Abuja. The
materials consisted of tissue blocks, glass slides and duplicates histopathology reports of patients whose specimens were received and processed in the Histopathology Laboratory of the hospital. The slides were reviewed blinded by two consultant
pathologists. The variables looked at were age of the patients, consistency of the prostate and histological diagnosis. Informed consent was obtained from the patients and University of Abuja Teaching Hospital IRB (NHREC/12/12/2008a) was obtained
for the study.
Results: Three primary tuberculosis of the prostate was studied on trucut sextant biopsy. The age range of the patients was between 55-74 years. All the three patients were found to have an enlarged hard prostate gland with raised PSA levels ranging from 9-15ng/ml; none of the patients has had history of contact with chronic tuberculosis patients in the remote past. The working diagnosis of the urologist was
prostate cancer but their histopathology results came out to be primary tuberculosis of the prostate.
Conclusion: Although, primary prostatic tuberculosis is a rare disease and a great mimic of prostate cancer, however, with a high index of suspicion and diligent search, it can be diagnosed on histopathology. Once diagnosis has been established a good
outcome can be achieved with anti-tuberculosis drugs.
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