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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Revista Chilena de Ortopedia y Traumatología 2024; 65(03): e136-e142
DOI: 10.1055/s-0044-1791726
Reporte de Caso | Case Report

Tuberculosis Infection in the Upper Limb: Case Series and Review of the Literature

Article in several languages: español | English
Daniela Gutiérrez-Zúñiga 
1   Servicio de Ortopedia, Hospital Universitario San Ignacio, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia
,
Andrés Felipe Amaya
2   Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia
,
Bárbara Gómez-Eslava 
1   Servicio de Ortopedia, Hospital Universitario San Ignacio, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia
,
Luis Alejandro García 
1   Servicio de Ortopedia, Hospital Universitario San Ignacio, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia
› Author Affiliations Funding The authors declare that they did not receive funding from agencies in the public, private or non-profit sectors to conduct the present study.
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Abstract

Objective To evaluate the outcomes of three cases of patients with history of autoimmune disorders presenting with bone, joint, and synovial involvement due to tuberculosis (TB) in the upper limb.

Materials and Methods A retrospective and descriptive case series.

Results Patients with clinical signs of infection of insidious course, who did not respond to the broad-spectrum antibiotic treatment or debridement, were diagnosed with osteoarticular TB through tools such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, and the diagnosis was confirmed through mycobacterial culture. The clinical signs of infection resolved with the tetraconjugate antibiotic therapy for tuberculosis; however, patients with bone involvement presented movement limitation sequelae due to joint destruction.

Conclusion Osteomuscular TB in the upper limb is uncommon, and it must be suspected in the presence of local signs of infection in patients with negative cultures for common bacteria that do not respond to antibiotic treatments and repeated local debridements.

Keywords

tuberculosis - osteoarticular - wrist - elbow - tenosynovitis

Ethical Considerations

The project was approved by the Research and Ethics Committee of Hospital Universitario San Ignacio (approval no. 02/2021). Patient data privacy was respected, as well as the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.




Publication History

Received: 08 March 2021

Accepted: 24 July 2024

Article published online:
26 December 2024

© 2024. Sociedad Chilena de Ortopedia y Traumatologia. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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