Infect Chemother. 2011 Feb;43(1):68-71. Korean.
Published online Feb 28, 2011.
Copyright © 2011 by The Korean Society of Infectious Diseases and Korean Society for Chemotherapy
Case Report

Testicular Tuberculosis That Mimicked Testicular Cancer

Won Jin Kim, Kyung Hwa Shin, Mi Hyun Kim, Woo Hyun Cho, Kwangha Lee, Ki Uk Kim, Doo Soo Jeon, Hye-Kyung Park, Yun Seong Kim, Min Ki Lee and Soon Kew Park
    • Department of Internal Medicine, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Busan, Korea.
Received July 07, 2010; Revised July 22, 2010; Accepted September 20, 2010.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Next to lymphatic involvement, genitourinary tuberculosis is considered the second most common manifestation of extrapulmonary tuberculosis worldwide. However, testicular and spermatic cord involvement is uncommon. We report here on a case of testicular and spermatic cord tuberculosis that masqueraded as testicular cancer. A 25-year-old man was admitted to our hospital with painless right scrotal swelling for past 2 months. The abdominal CT scan showed a heterogenous testicular mass that was suspicious for being malignancy. He underwent right radical orchiectomy; testicular and spermatic cord tuberculosis was revealed on histopathological examination. This case highlights the importance of taking a thoughtful diagnostic approach for testicular and spermatic cord tuberculosis, including fine needle aspiration before performing surgical exploration.

Keywords
Urogenital tuberculosis; Urogenital cancer; Testicular cancer

Figures

Figure 1
On the ultrasonographic images, the right testis shows enlargement and inhomogeneous echogenecity. On the color Doppler images, the right testis shows increased vascularity (A). The enhanced CT scan reveals an enlarged right testis, which demonstrated inhomogenous density and necrotic foci (B).

Figure 2
The chest radiograph shows fibrocalcified nodules in both upper lobes (A). The chest CT reveals centrilobular nodules and a tree-in bud pattern in both upper lobes (B).

Figure 3
Pathologic examination demonstrats normal testicular tissue on the left lower corner, while with necrotizing granulomas and Langerhans cells (arrows) on the center (H&E stain, ×100).

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