Peritonitis tuberculosa

Peritoneal tuberculosis was diagnosed in a 38-year-old man from Curaçao, a 42-year-old Dutch man and a 38-year-old woman from Surinam. All patients had been living in the Netherlands for over a decade at the time of diagnosis. Time to diagnosis and treatment varied between patients. Factors contributing to delayed diagnosis were nonspecific symptoms, failure to consider tuberculosis exposure, consulting of more than one physician and delay in obtaining adequate material for histopathologic and microbiologic tests. These cases show that peritoneal tuberculosis can represent a diagnostic challenge. Considering the rising incidence of tuberculosis in the Netherlands, general practitioners and medical specialists will encounter patients with extrapulmonary tuberculosis more frequently. We recommend that tuberculosis exposure should always be considered by clinicians, even in patients originating from non-endemic countries. In case of suspected peritoneal tuberculosis, laparoscopy with peritoneal biopsy is the diagnostic tool of choice and should be performed without delay.

Conflict of interest and financial support: none declared.