Otomastoiditis tuberculosa: A propósito de un caso

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) has been one of the infectious diseases most studied in the history of medicine. In Chile, TB incidence was 13.7 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2008, being the country with the lowest incidence in Latin America. World-wide publications consider tuberculous otitis media (TOM) as a very rare form of TB presentation, constituting 0.05 to 0.9% of chronic otitis media. Population younger than 15 years old is the most vulnerable, 85% of the cases belongs to this range of age. Chile has not epidemiological data available on this pathology. The aims of this article are to show a clinical case of TOM and posterior otomastoiditis, in an infant hospitalized in Roberto del Rio Children's Hospital in Santiago de Chile and review the literature about this pathology, in order to raise awareness for doing an opportune diagnosis of this condition.