Genital Tuberculosis as a Socially Significant Disease (Literature Review)

Abstract

Globally, TB is the second leading cause of death from infectious diseases after COVID-19. Tuberculosis of the female genital organs is a type of extrapulmonary tuberculosis.It is known that both clinically pronounced and latent forms of this disease can cause both primary and secondary infertility due to pathogenetically caused disruption of the structure of the fallopian tubes and changes in the susceptibility of the uterine endometrium. It can be assumed that the problem of genital tuberculosis in Russia is still very relevant, although its true prevalence is unknown. This assumption is based on the facts of the projected growth of indicators the incidence of extrapulmonary tuberculosis, the obvious discrepancy between the real incidence and the official figures, as well as the increasing incidence of tubal-peritoneal infertility, which is often caused by genital tuberculosis. It is known that tuberculosis of the female genital organs is a difficult disease to diagnose. This is determined, in particular, by the fact that it does not have specific (so-called "marker") manifestations. Low rates of diagnosis of extrapulmonary forms of TB create a false sense of well-being, which does not reflect its true epidemiological picture. An obvious need today is the development of an optimal diagnostic complex, the use of which would contribute to accelerating the diagnosis of genital tuberculosis in women and, as a result, preventing the occurrence of irreversible changes in the female reproductive system caused by it. The authors used the scientific databases CyberLeninka, ELibrary and PubMed. Articles were searched for the following keywords: "tuberculosis", "genital tuberculosis", "infertility and tuberculosis". The paper analyzes articles published over the past 10 years.