Nontuberculous Mycobacterial Cervical Adenitis: A Ten‐Year Retrospective Review

Abstract

The study highlights the fact that a high index of clinical suspicion is needed to make an early diagnosis of nontuberculous mycobacterial lymphadenitis and lends further weight to the already existing evidence that surgical excision remains the mainstay of successful treatment for lymphadenitis caused by nontuberculous mycobacteria.

Surgical treatment for chronic cervical lymphadenitis in children. Experience from a tertiary care paediatric centre on non-tuberculous mycobacterial infections

“…Surgical excision of the infected lymph nodes is considered by experts to be the most effective treatment, especially for extensive cases, but it could be complicated by the anatomical site of infection and the proximity to important vessels and nerves [17,21,[24][25][26][36][37][38][39].…”

“…So far, the proportion of infected lymph nodes with spontaneous recovery is unknown and, despite many reports available in literature have published about this item, the epidemiology and treatment of NTM lymphadenitis are still not well documented. Although surgical excision has been widely suggested as the treatment of choice for NTM cervical lymphadenitis [20,21,[24][25][26], with a reported complete resolution of the disease ranging from 80% to 96% of the cases, recent trials support the combined approach of surgery followed by antibiotic therapy [26][27][28]. In contrast, there are an increasing numbers of investigators reporting successful conservative treatment with antibiotics, in particular prolonged course of macrolides and rifampicin and/or ethambutol [16,[29][30][31][32].…”

Infection for Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Nontuberculous Mycobacteria in the HIV/AIDS Patients

“…In the presence of adequate laboratory protocols to avoid contamination with environmental organisms, these studies provide unequivocal evidence of infection but have the obvious shortcoming of a lack of clinical data, preventing the assessment regarding the presence or absence of disease. The final and most useful study type combines information from the mycobacterial laboratory and the clinician's assessment [55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62] .…”

“…It causes papular lesions in the extremities and may be confused with sporotricosis. Mycobacterium ulcerans is established cause of buruli ulcer, Mycobacterium vaccae has also been reported to be a cause of skin infections [51][52][53][54][55][56] .…”

“…The involved lymph nodes are generally unilateral (95%) and not tender [54][55][56][57] . The nodes may enlarge rapidly, and even rupture, with formation of sinus tracts that result in prolonged local drainage.…”