Gastric tuberculous abscesses

A 27-year-old African male, recently immigrated to France as war refugee from Sudan presented with abdominal pain and evere cachexia. Clinical examination of the abdomen was noral. Laboratory tests showed microcytic anaemia and lymphopenia ith elevated inflammatory markers. Serology for Human Immuodeficiency Virus (HIV) was negative. A computed tomography of he abdomen revealed hypodense collections in the gastric wall Fig. 1, white arrows). Upper endoscopy showed several sessile, olypoid lesions in the gastric corpus, 1–3 cm in diameter. Lesion iopsies resulted in evacuation of a caseous material into the gastric umen (Fig. 2). Direct examination of the material was negative for icroorganisms but culture in specific medium confirmed the presnce of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The patient was diagnosed with astric tuberculous abscesses; further investigations showed pulonary and peritoneal tuberculosis. The patient was successfully reated with a 12-month antituberculosis treatment. Epidemiology of tuberculosis in Western Europe is characerised by a high proportion of cases occurring in immigrants