A case series of gastrointestinal tuberculosis in renal transplant patients.

Abstract

Tuberculosis is a disease relatively frequent in renal transplant patients, presenting a wide variety of clinical manifestations, often involving various organs and potentially fatal. Gastrointestinal tuberculosis, although rare in the general population, is about 50 times more frequent in renal transplant patients. Intestinal tuberculosis has a very difficult investigational approach, requiring a high clinical suspicion for its diagnosis. Therapeutic options may be a problem in the context of an immunosuppressed patient, requiring adjustment of maintenance therapy. The authors report two cases of isolated gastro-intestinal tuberculosis in renal transplant recipients that illustrates the difficulty of making this diagnosis and a brief review of the literature on its clinical presentation, diagnosis, and therapeutic approach.

• Authors: Pedro Azevedo, Cristina Freitas, Hugo Silva, Pedro Aguiar, Pedro Farrajota, Manuela Almeida, Sofia Pedroso, La Salete Martins, Leonídio Dias, José Ramón Vizcaíno, António Castro Henriques, António Cabrita
• Journal: Case reports in nephrology (Case Rep Nephrol) Vol. 2013 Pg. 213273 ( 2013) ISSN: 2090-6641 [Print] United States
• PMID: 24558621 (Publication Type: Journal Article)