Abstract:
Tuberculosis is a major health problem in The Republic of Yemen.
Tuberculous lymphadenitis is one of the most common forms of
extrapulmonary
tuberculosis.
Therefore,
this
retrospective
descriptive study was conducted in yemen to investigate the
morphological pattern of tuberculous lymphadenitis, as well as
assessing the reliability measures of (ZN) Zeil Nelson and
Fluorescent
methods
in
identification
of
mycobacterium
tuberculosis.
One hundred lymph nodes tissue biopsies, that were previously
diagnosed by conventional histopathology as having tuberculous
lymphadenitis were reinvestigated.
Five micron in thickness sections were obtained from each
formalin fixed paraffin wax processed tissues. The sections were
stained using H & E, ZN and fluorescent methods.
All of the 100 specimens were proved as having histopathological
pattern of tuberculosis lymphadenitis.
The most major histological features were: granuloma and
caseastion (68%), giant cell (88%), eptheliod cell (80%), caseation
(84%) lymphocytes (31%) and histiocytes (4%).
When staining the specimens with ZN and fluorescent, of the 100
specimens only 3(3%) and 9(9%) specimens were found positive,
by ZN and fluorescent method, respectively.
ZN and fluorescent methods have limitations in diagnosis of
tuberculous
lymphadenitis
due
to
their
lower
sensitivity.
Histopathology remains the most suitable method for the diagnosis
of tuberclous lymphadenitis. In cases of suspected tuberclous
lymphadenitis, it is advisable to confirm with more sensitive and
specific method, such as PCR or immunohistochemistry before
reporting the negative results.
