Genital tuberculosis in a Woman Manifested as Secondary Subfertility

Abstract

Introduction Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which remains as a major public health problem despite the advances in antibiotic treatment and vaccination. Tuberculosis can be categorized into pulmonary and extrapulmonary forms based on the affected organ. Genital tuberculosis (GTB) represents 1520% of cases of extrapulmonary TB and affects 12.1% of patients with pulmonary TB (1). GTB mainly affects women in the reproductive age group (20-40 years). Usually, this is a silent disease and the most common presentation amongst these patients is subfertility. In addition to that, menstrual disturbances, dyspareunia and abdominal pain may occur. Approximately 5-10% subfertile women worldwide have GTB. The worldwide incidence varies from less than 1% in developed countries to more than 13% in developing countries (2,3). In our literature review, accurate statistics of GTB among subfertile women in Sri Lanka could not be found.