Application of ultrasound multimodal imaging in the prediction of cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis rupture.

Lymph node tuberculosis is particularly common in regions with a high tuberculosis burden, and it has a great risk of rupture. This study aims to investigate the utility of ultrasound multimodal imaging in predicting the rupture of cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis (CTL). 128 patients with unruptured CTL confirmed by pathology or laboratory tests were included. Various ultrasonic image features, including long-to-short-axis ratio (L/S), margin, internal echotexture, coarse calcification, Color Doppler Flow Imaging (CDFI), perinodal echogenicity, elastography score, and non-enhanced area proportion in contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS), were analyzed to determine their predictive value for CTL rupture within a one-year follow-up period. As a result, L/S (P < 0.001), margin (P < 0.001), internal echotexture (P < 0.001), coarse calcification (P < 0.001), perinodal echogenicity (P < 0.001), and the area of non-enhancement in CEUS (P < 0.001) were identified as significant imaging features for predicting CTL rupture. The prognostic prediction showed a sensitivity of 89.29%, specificity of 100%, accuracy of 95.31%, respectively. Imaging findings such as L/S < 2, unclear margin, heterogeneous internal echotexture, perinodal echogenicity changed, and non-enhancement area in CEUS > 1/2, are indicative of CTL rupture, while coarse calcification in the lymph nodes is associated with a favorable prognosis.

Imaging of infra-thoracic tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a potentially curable disease that is a leading cause of death globally. While it typically affects the lungs, this disease may involve many extra-pulmonary sites, particularly in patients with risk factors. Extra-pulmonary TB often mimics a variety of different diseases, posing a diagnostic dilemma. Imaging aids in early diagnosis of TB, especially in patients with non-specific or atypical symptoms found at extra-pulmonary infra-thoracic locations. Imaging also helps guide appropriate laboratory investigation, monitor disease progress, and response to treatment. This review aims to highlight the imaging spectrum of TB affecting the infra-thoracic region, that is, gastrointestinal tract, abdominal lymph nodes, peritoneal cavity, intra-abdominal solid organs, and urogenital system.

Comparison of chest radiographs against minimum intensity projection reconstruction computed tomography scans for detection of airway stenosis in children with lymphobronchial tuberculosis.

BACKGROUND: Ideally, suspected airway compression in symptomatic children with lymphobronchial tuberculosis (TB) would be diagnosed using modern computed tomography (CT) assisted by coronal minimum intensity projection (MinIP) reconstructions. However, in TB-endemic regions with limited resources, practitioners rely on conventional radiography for diagnosing TB and its complications. Furthermore, airway compression detected on conventional radiographs would upgrade a patient into the severe category according to the new World Health Organization guidelines, precluding the patient from shorter treatment protocols. The accuracy of conventional radiographs in the context of detecting airway compression in children with TB has not been specifically evaluated against an imaging gold standard. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to compare frontal chest radiographs against thick-slab angled coronal CT MinIP in identifying airway stenosis at ten specific sites and to determine observer agreement between the modalities regarding the degree of stenosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective cross-sectional study compared chest radiographs with standardized angled coronal CT MinIP in children with symptomatic lymphobronchial TB at ten predetermined airway locations. Chest radiographs were evaluated by one pediatric radiologist and CT MinIP reconstructions were independently interpreted by three readers. Sensitivity and specificity were calculated using CT MinIP as the gold standard. Stenosis was graded as 1 for mild (1-50%), 2 for moderate (51-75%), 3a for severe (76-99%), and 3b for total occlusion (100%). Agreement between the two modalities regarding severity of stenosis was calculated using the kappa coefficient for each affected site. RESULTS: A total of 37 patients were included in the study. The median age of patients was 14.3 months (interquartile range 8.0-23.2). Three hundred and seventy individual bronchi (10 from each of the 37 patients) were evaluated for stenosis. Chest radiographs showed that 31 out of 37 (84%) patients had stenosis in at least one of ten evaluated sites, most commonly the left main bronchus and bronchus intermedius, and this was confirmed via CT MinIP. The gold standard (CT MinIP) demonstrated stenosis in at least one of ten sites in all 37 patients (100%). Left main bronchus stenosis was detected by chest radiography with a 92.9% sensitivity and 100% specificity. Sensitivity and specificity for bronchus intermedius stenosis were 80% and 75%, respectively. There was substantial agreement for grade of stenosis between chest radiographs and CT (kappa=0.67) for the left main bronchus and moderate agreement (kappa=0.58) for the bronchus intermedius. Severe stenosis was found in 78 bronchi on CT compared to 32 bronchi (Grade 3a: 9, Grade 3b: 23) on chest radiographs. CONCLUSION: The diagnosis of pulmonary TB in children continues to rely heavily on imaging, and we have shown that in young children, chest radiographs had a high sensitivity and specificity for detecting airway stenosis at certain anatomical sites, when adequately visualized, resulting from tuberculous lymph node compression at left main bronchus and bronchus intermedius. For most sites, the interobserver agreement was poor. Stenosis of the left main bronchus and bronchus intermedius should be the focus of chest radiograph interpretation and can assist both diagnosis and classification of patients for treatment.

Observer- and radiomics model-based computed tomography classification of suppurative versus tuberculous lymphadenitis complicated with nodal necrosis of the neck in children.

BACKGROUND: Computed tomography (CT) can be used for the early detection of lymphadenitis. Radiomics is able to identify a large amount of hidden information from images. However, few CT-based radiomics studies on cervical lymphadenitis in children have been published. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the role of visual CT analysis and CT radiomics in differentiating cervical suppurative node necrosis from tuberculous node necrosis in pediatric patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 101 patients with cervical suppurative lymphadenitis (n=52) or cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis (n=49) were included. Clinical data and CT images were retrieved for analysis. For visual observation, 11 major CT features were identified for univariate and multivariate analyses. For radiomics analysis, image segmentation, feature value extraction, and dimension reduction, feature selection and the construction of radiomics-based models were performed through the RadCloud platform. RESULTS: For the visual observation, significant differences were found between the two groups, including the short diameter of the largest necrotic lymph node (P=0.03), sharp border of the node (P=0.02), fusion of nodes (P=0.02), regular silhouette of the necrotic area (P=0.001), multilocular necrotic area (P=0.02), node calcification (P=0.004), and enhancement degree of the nodal nonnecrotic area (P=0.01). No feature was found to be an independent predictor for suppurative or tuberculous lymphadenitis (P>0.05 for all features). Concerning the radiomics analysis, after feature value extraction and dimension reduction, nine related features were selected. The support vector machine classifier achieved high diagnostic performance in distinguishing suppurative from tuberculous lymphadenitis. The area under the curve, accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of the support vector machine model test set were 0.89 (95% confidence interval: 0.72-1.00), 0.88, 0.78, and 0.90, respectively. CONCLUSION: Compared to observer-based CT image analyses, radiomics model-based CT image analyses exhibit better performance in the differential diagnosis of cervical suppurative and tuberculous lymphadenitis complicated with nodal necrosis in children.

Analysis of misdiagnosis and 18F-FDG PET/CT findings of lymph node tuberculosis.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate 18F-FDG PET/CT findings of tuberculous lymphadenitis and analyze the causes of misdiagnosis. METHOD: Between 2013 and 2021, a retrospective review was conducted on 22 patients at Jiangxi Provincial People's Hospital Affiliated with Nanchang University who had lymph node tuberculosis confirmed by histology or clinical investigation. Subjective judgment and quantitative analysis were adopted. RESULTS: Out of 22 patients, 14 are male and 8 are female. The average age was 55.5 years (55.5±12.4). The most common site of lymph node tuberculosis (LNTB) is the mediastinum (41.5%), followed by the neck (24.4%) and the abdominal cavity (21.9%). Half of the patients have more than one site affected. More than half of LNTB patients (54.5%) are concurrent with other types of TB, especially PTB. Among the 41 biggest affected lymph nodes, the average maximum diameter, minimum diameter, SUVmax and the lesion SUVmax/SUVmean liver ratio are 22.04±8.39, 16.93±6.75, 9.72±5.04 and 6.72±3.60, respectively. There is a poor correlation coefficient of 0.236 between the FDG uptake and the size of the biggest affected lymph node. Patients who are concurrent with no other TB have the significantly higher FDG uptake than patients who are concurrent with other TB (12.42 vs 8.02) (p = 0.005). Among these cases, 6 cases (27.3%) are accurately diagnosed with LNTB, all of which have pulmonary tuberculosis as a complication. However, 16 cases (72.7%) are misdiagnosed as lymphoma (50%), sarcoidosis (13.6%), and lymph node metastasis (9%). CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that 18F-FDG PET/CT is very useful in detecting LNTB because tuberculous granulomas show significant levels of glucose uptake. It proves to be an effective method for revealing lesion extent and discovering additional lesions that morphological imaging is missed. However, 18F-FDG PET/CT is not able to reliably distinguish LNTB from lymphoma, sarcoidosis, and metastatic lymph nodes. Nonetheless, 18F-FDG PET/CT allows for the selection of the most optimal biopsy location, and thus has potential to detect early treatment response and distinguish between active and inactive lesions.

Comparison of Silicosis and Tuberculosis Involving Mediastinal Lymph Nodes Based on Contrast-Enhanced Multidetector-Row Computed Tomography.

PURPOSE: To investigate the different imaging features of contrast-enhanced multidetector-row-computed tomography (MDCT) for distinguishing between silicosis and tuberculosis involving the mediastinal lymph nodes. METHODS: 86 silicosis patients and 61 tuberculosis patients with mediastinal lymphadenopathy based on contrast-enhanced MDCT were included. The enhanced patterns, anatomical distribution and calcification features of the enlarged lymph nodes were retrospectively compared between the groups using the Pearson chi-square test or Fisher's exact test. RESULTS: Homogeneous enhancement of the mediastinal lymph nodes was more commonly observed in silicosis (94.2%, 81/86) than in tuberculosis (19.7%, 12/61). Peripheral enhancement was more frequent in tuberculosis (n = 44, 72.1%) than in silicosis involving the mediastinal lymph nodes (n = 1, 1.2%), and multilocular appearance was more frequent in TB than in silicosis. Tuberculosis was more likely to affect regions 1R, 2R, 2L, 3A, 5 and 6 than silicosis (all p < 0.05), especially region 2R. Calcification of the lymph nodes was more common in the silicosis group than in tuberculosis group. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of silicosis with lymphadenopathy with homogeneous enhanced pattern were 94.2%, 80.3% and 88.4%, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of tuberculosis lymphadenopathy with peripheral enhanced pattern were 72.1%, 98.8%, and 87.7%, respectively. CONCLUSION: The predominant enhanced patterns, anatomical distribution, and calcification features of mediastinal lymph nodes were different between tuberculosis and silicosis. These radiographic features might help differentiate tuberculosis from silicosis, which provides imaging information for the differential diagnosis of the two diseases in a clinical setting.

Exploratory study on the predictive value of ultrasound radiomics for cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis.

PURPOSE: To investigate the predictive values of gray-scale ultrasound (G-US) and strain elastic ultrasound (SE-US) radiomic features for cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis (CTL). MATERIAL AND METHODS: The G-US and SE-US images of 147 patients with pathologically confirmed CTL and 69 non-CTL patients were retrospectively analyzed. A total of 851 imaging features were extracted. The patients were divided into the training set and test set in 7:3 ratio. In the training set, the minimum redundancy maximum relevance (mRMR) and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) were used for feature selection and modeling. The diagnostic power of G-US and SE-US ultrasound radiomics in identifying CTL was evaluated in test set. RESULTS: The G-US and SE-US have finally selected 10 and 14 features, respectively. In the G-US group, the diagnostic sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of the training set were 69.7%, 85.7% and 70.0%, respectively, and those values in the test set were 81.3%, 70.0% and 86.4%, respectively. The SE-US group had a sensitivity of 71.7%, a specificity of 81.6%, and an accuracy of 67.0% in the training set, and those parameters in the test set were 81.0%, 75.0%, and 83.7%, respectively. In the G-US group, the positive and negative predictive value of the training set were 0.519 and 0.901, respectively, and those values in the test set were 0.700 and 0.864, respectively. The SE-US group had a positive predictive value of 0.541, and a negative predictive value of 0.885 in the training set, and those parameters in the test set were 0.682 and 0.878, respectively. By Delong test, G-US and SE-US groups showed no significant differences in diagnostic performance between the training and test sets. CONCLUSIONS: The ultrasound radiomic features of G-US and SE-US exhibited certain predictive potential in detecting CTL, providing a new non-invasive method for clinicians to more accurately evaluate patients with CTL.

Radiomics and machine learning for the diagnosis of pediatric cervical non-tuberculous mycobacterial lymphadenitis.

Non-tuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) infection is an emerging infectious entity that often presents as lymphadenitis in the pediatric age group. Current practice involves invasive testing and excisional biopsy to diagnose NTM lymphadenitis. In this study, we performed a retrospective analysis of 249 lymph nodes selected from 143 CT scans of pediatric patients presenting with lymphadenopathy at the Montreal Children's Hospital between 2005 and 2018. A Random Forest classifier was trained on the ten most discriminative features from a set of 1231 radiomic features. The model classifying nodes as pyogenic, NTM, reactive, or proliferative lymphadenopathy achieved an accuracy of 72%, a precision of 68%, and a recall of 70%. Between NTM and all other causes of lymphadenopathy, the model achieved an area under the curve (AUC) of 89%. Between NTM and pyogenic lymphadenitis, the model achieved an AUC of 90%. Between NTM and the reactive and proliferative lymphadenopathy groups, the model achieved an AUC of 93%. These results indicate that radiomics can achieve a high accuracy for classification of NTM lymphadenitis. Such a non-invasive highly accurate diagnostic approach has the potential to reduce the need for invasive procedures in the pediatric population.

The diagnostic value of contrast-enhanced ultrasound for cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the value of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) for the diagnosis of cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis (CTL). METHODS: The cohort study included 203 consecutive patients diagnosed with cervical lymph node. Before pathological or laboratory confirmation, all patients underwent CEUS examination, and the imaging findings were analyzed afterward. The diagnostic efficiency of the CEUS imaging findings of CTL was evaluated. RESULTS: Nighty-seven patients of the 203 (47.8%) were pathologically or laboratory confirmed with a CTL diagnosis while the remainder (52.2%) were diagnosed with non-tuberculous lymphadenitis. Regarding the imaging findings of CEUS, it was more common in CTL patients to find a pattern of heterogeneous enhancement inside the lymph nodes relative to non-tuberculous patients [81.44% (79/97) vs 15.09% (16/106), P < 0.01]. The sensitivity of the feature in diagnosis for CTL was 81.44% and the specificity was 84.91%, resepectively. Furthermore, a pattern of peripheral rim-like enhancement had been notable in CTL patients compared with non-tuberculous patients [86.60% (84/97) vs 12.26% (13/106), P < 0.01], associating with a diagnostic sensitivity of 86.60% and a specificity of 87.74%. When it came to the combination of both imaging findings mentioned above, the features were more prominent in CTL patients than compared with non-tuberculous patients [74.23% (72/97) vs 5.66% (6/106), P < 0.01], with a diagnostic sensitivity of 74.23% and a high specificity of 94.34%. Regarding area under curve (AUC) for the ROC analysis, the feature of internal heterogeneous enhancement, peripheral rim-like enhancement, and both features were 0.832, 0.872, and 0.843. CONCLUSIONS: CEUS patterns of heterogeneous enhancement and peripheral rim-like enhancement of lymph nodes are helpful characteristics for the diagnosis of CTL.

The value of multimodal ultrasonography in differential diagnosis of tuberculous and non-tuberculous superficial lymphadenitis.

BACKGROUND: To investigate the value of multimodal ultrasonography in differentiating tuberculosis from other lymphadenopathy. METHODS: Sixty consecutive patients with superficial lymphadenopathy treated at our hospital from January 2017 to December 2018 were categorized into four types based on the color Doppler ultrasound, five types based on contrast-enhanced ultrasound, and five types based on elastography. Sensitivity and specificity were calculated of all the three imaging, including color Doppler examination, contrast-enhanced ultrasound and one individual multimodal method, for detecting lymph nodes. RESULTS: A total of 60 patients were included in the final analysis. Of those, Mycobacterium tuberculosis was positive in 38 patients and negative in 22 patients. Among the 38 patients who were positive for Mycobacterium tuberculosis, of which 23 had a history of pulmonary tuberculosis, accounting for 60.53% of the positive cases, and the remaining patients did not combine lesions of other organs. Among the 60 superficial lymph nodes, 63.3% presented with tuberculous lymphadenitis. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the color Doppler examination were 73.68%, 68.18%, and 71.67%, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of contrast-enhanced ultrasound were 89.47%, 63.64% and 80.00%, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of the elastography were 63.16%, 63.64% and 63.33%, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of one individual multimodal method were 42.11%, 95.45% and 61.67%, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of all modes combined were 100.00%, 27.27% and 73.33%, respectively. CONCLUSION: Multimodal ultrasonography has high predictive value for the differential diagnosis of superficial tuberculous lymphadenitis.

A proposed CT classification of progressive lung parenchymal injury complicating pediatric lymphobronchial tuberculosis: From reversible to irreversible lung injury.

Lymphobronchial tuberculosis (LBTB) is tuberculous lymphadenopathy affecting the airways, which is particularly common in children with primary TB. Airway compression by lymphadenopathy causes downstream parenchymal pathology, which may ultimately result in irreversible lung destruction, if not treated timeously. Computed tomography (CT) is considered the "gold standard" for detecting mediastinal lymph nodes in children with TB. CT is also the best way of imaging the airways of children with LBTB. The CT findings of the parenchymal complications and associations of LBTB on CT have been described, but no severity classification was provided to aid management decisions. Identifying the parenchymal complications of LBTB and recognizing their severity has clinical relevance. Using prior publications on LBTB and post obstructive lung injury we have used an image bank of CT scans in children with pulmonary TB, presenting with airway symptoms, to create a CT severity staging of lung injury in LBTB. The staging focuses on distinguishing nonsalvageable destruction (nonenhancing or cavitated lung) from salvageable lung parenchymal disease (enhancing and noncavitated) to inform the management decisions, which range from bronchoscopic airway clearance to surgical decompression of the compressing nodes.

Role of ultrasound in the diagnosis of cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis in children.

BACKGROUND: To describe sonographic characteristics of cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis (CTBL) in children, clinical information, and sonograms of 348 lymph nodes (LNs) from 57 children with CTBL were retrospectively analyzed in this study. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the clinical data and sonograms of 348 LNs from 31 boys and 26 girls with CTBL, who were confirmed by pathology or laboratory examination, at the Hangzhou Red Cross Hospital between June 2014 and December 2020. The age of the children ranged from 1 to 14 years (average 7.1 ± 2.9 years). RESULTS: Night sweats, fatigue and loss of appetite were the most common clinical symptoms observed in children with CTBL. Unilateral LN involvements were common. Occasionally, CTBL was found in healthy children with no symptoms. On sonography, the hilus was absent or unclear in all LNs. The short-to-long axis (S/L) ratio was ≥ 0.5, and the edges were unclear in most LNs. Other accompanying findings included necrosis (47.4%), an echogenic thin layer (36.8%), surrounding soft-tissue edema (38.5%), multiple intra-nodal strong echo (28.2%), sinus (22.7%) and abscess formation (6.9%). The Doppler ultrasound showed that the majority of vascularity patterns of CTBL were capsular or peripheral (33.3%). CONCLUSIONS: Ultrasound is a recommended examination method for children from different age groups with cervical lymphadenitis. The ultrasonic signs of hilus absence, S/L ratio ≥ 0.5, unclear edge, necrosis, echogenic thin layer, strong echoes and capsular or peripheral vascularity may aid in the diagnosis of cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis.

Positron-emission-tomography in tubercular lymphadenopathy: A study on its role in evaluating post-treatment response.

Lymph node tuberculosis is one of the most common forms of extrapulmonary tuberculosis worldwide. The study aimed to evaluate the role of positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) in determining post-treatment response in lymph node tuberculosis. A PET-CT was done in all treatment naïve tubercular lymphadenitis adults at baseline and after six months of therapy. The post-treatment clinical response was compared with the metabolic response on PET-CT. Of the 25 patients with tubercular lymphadenitis, 9/25 patients showed a complete metabolic response (CMR) at six months, while 16 patients had a partial metabolic response (PMR). All patients with CMR had a good clinical response. However, discordance between clinical and PET findings was noticed in those with PMR. The role of PET-CT in evaluating post-treatment response in patients with tubercular lymphadenitis needs further evaluation with a larger sample size.

Mediastinal tuberculous lymphadenitis presenting with insidious back pain in a male adult: a case report and review of the literature.

Mediastinal tuberculous lymphadenitis (MTL) is mostly observed in primary tuberculosis in infants, children and adolescents, and is not found commonly in adults. Mediastinal tuberculous lymphadenitis cases may present with an insidious progression of tuberculous symptoms, including gradual deterioration in the lungs and a variety of clinical characteristics; however, initial symptoms are rarely only chronic back pain. We present the case of a 33-year-old man with mediastinal tuberculous lymphadenitis misdiagnosed as myofascitis. Since such individuals do not develop respiratory symptoms in the initial stages, they often go undiagnosed and can potentially spread tuberculosis.

Peripancreatic Tuberculosis Lymphadenopathy: The Role of Endoscopic Ultrasound for Diagnosis.

Pancreatic and peripancreatic tuberculosis is a rare abdominal tuberculosis. Diagnosis for pancreatic tuberculosis can be challenging. Conventional imaging tools may show mass or malignancy in the pancreas. Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) is an excellent tools for evaluating pancreas and peri pancreas region. It also allows us to obtain tissue sample for cytology and histopathology. Here we present a case of peripancreatic tuberculosis lymphadenopathy that mimic pancreatic mass. His symptoms were also nonspecific (weight loss, epigastric pain, and irregular fever). From EUS evaluation we found that there was no mass but multiple lymphadenopathy around the pancreas and then performed FNA. The result of the cytology was granuloma inflammation and caseous necrosis which is compatible with tuberculosis infection. From this case illustration we conclude that EUS is an important diagnostic tool for pancreatic lesion to avoid unnecessary surgery.

Kikuchi Cervical Lymphadenitis in Children: Ultrasound Differentiation From Common Infectious Lymphadenitis.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate ultrasound (US) features of enlarged cervical lymph nodes (LNs) to differentiate between Kikuchi disease (KD) and other common types of infectious lymphadenitis in an East Asian pediatric patient population. METHODS: A total of 142 pediatric patients with KD and 45 patients with infectious lymphadenitis (suppurative lymphadenitis [n = 29], nontuberculous mycobacterial lymphadenitis [n = 9], and tuberculous lymphadenitis [n = 7]) were included. The clinical characteristics, laboratory results, and US features of LNs were reviewed. The area under the curve (AUC) from a receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used as a diagnostic accuracy measure. RESULTS: A multiple clustered adjacent pattern, bilaterality, an even size, posterior neck involvement, no enlargement, an elongated-to-ovoid shape, homogeneous hypoechogenicity, a well-defined margin, presence of an echogenic fatty hilum, no intranodal gross necrosis, increased perinodal fat echogenicity, and no increased echogenicity of the adjacent sternocleidomastoid muscle were significant US features of the affected LNs to discriminate KD from infectious lymphadenitis (P < .05). Homogeneous hypoechogenicity in KD showed the highest AUC (0.930) as a single variable (95% confidence interval, 0.88-0.96). The AUCs were increased in 3 combination models with 2 US features: homogeneous echogenicity and 1 of 3 other US features (increased perinodal fat echogenicity, 0.935; number of affected LNs, 0.947; and LN shape, 0.949). CONCLUSIONS: Homogeneous hypoechogenicity of LNs was a significant US feature with the highest diagnostic accuracy in differentiating KD from common infectious lymphadenitis on a univariate analysis. In the combination model, US features of an elongated-to-ovoid shape and homogeneous hypoechogenicity showed the highest diagnostic accuracy.

Role of contrast-enhanced ultrasound guidance in core-needle biopsy for diagnosis of cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the diagnostic value of core-needle biopsy (CNB) guided by contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis (CTL). METHODS: 178 patients with pathological confirmation of CTL were retrospectively enrolled. All of them had undergone CNB prior to the final surgery. According to the different ways of puncture guidance, they were divided into two groups: conventional ultrasound (US) group (n = 81) and CEUS group (n = 97). The comparison of diagnostic efficacy between two groups was compared and analyzed. RESULTS: Among the 178 patients, 146 were directly diagnosed as CTL by CNB, including 59 patients in CEUS group and 87 patients in US group. The diagnostic accuracy were 89.7% (87/97) and 72.8% (59/81), respectively (P < 0.01). For subgroup analyses, differences among diagnostic efficacy ascribed to the different guiding methods were significant in medium size group (>2.0 cm and ≤3.0 cm) and large size group (>3.0 cm), 91.7% for CEUS group vs. 69.0% for US group (P < 0.05) and 84.4% for CEUS group vs. 57.7% for US group (P < 0.05), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: In the diagnosis of CTL, compared with the US-guided CNB, CEUS-guided CNB have certain advantages, especially for larger lymph nodes.

A case of tuberculosis presented by obstructive jaundice tuberculosis-related mechanical icterus.

Obstructive jaundice caused by tuberculosis lymphadenitis is a rare condition. It can mimic clinical and radiological findings of hepatobiliary malignancies. The authors report a 24-year-old male patient who presented with abdominal pain, fever and jaundice for the last two weeks. It was found that cholestasis enzymes were increased by 2-3 fold and direct bilirubin was 6.13 mg/dL. Imaging studies revealed conglomerated lymph nodes with some cavitary lesions and dilated intrahepatic biliary canal secondary to compression by the lymph nodes. Tuberculosis was found to be positive in the polymerase chain reaction analysis of the aspirate that was obtained in the guidance of imaging studies. M. tuberculosis complex was isolated from mycobacterial culture. Anti-tuberculosis treatment was initiated. Clinical, laboratory and radiological findings completely resolved by medical therapy alone. Tuberculosis lymphadenitis should be kept in mind in cases presenting with obstructive jaundice in endemic areas and interventional diagnostic techniques should be preferred in eligible patients.