Prevalence of tuberculosis in cervical lymphadenopathy at Avecinna Medical College & Hospital Lahore

Objective: to find out the prevalence of tuberculosis in cervical lymphadenopathy. study design: descriptive study. place and duration: in surgical and ent out patients department at avecinna medical college & hospital dha lahore from jan. 2011 to dec. 2012. material and methods: patients above 10 yrs of age from both sexes were included in this study. after routine work up and fnac in selective cases all the patients had lymph node biopsy either incision or excision for the confirmation of diagnosis. results: a total seventy patients presented in opd with cervical lymph adenopathy were included. predominantly females were involved. sixty patients (85.75%) had tuberculous lymphadenopathy. in 7(10%) patients reactive hyperplasia found while two patients (2.85%) had lymphoma and only one patient (1.42%) had metastatic lesion from thyroid carcinoma. constitutional symptoms and family history of tb was absent in most of the patients. conclusion: tuberculosis was most common clinical condition which affects the cervical lymph nodes. laboratory findings esr xray and fnac were inconclusive in majority of patients. only the confirmatory tool for the disease was tissue biopsy and histopathology.