Frequency of tuberculosis in cervical lymphadenopathy

Aim: to find the frequency of tuberculosis in cervical lymphadenopathy and patients characteristics. study design: descriptive study place & duration of study: surgical unit,ch. rehmat ali memorial hospital,township,lahore from jan 2009 to dec 2011. most of the patients lived in the vicinity of the hospital. methodology: patients with cervical lymphadenopathy above age of 15 of both sexes were included in the study. fine needle aspiration cytology (fnac) of lymph nodes was done in all patients. lymph node excision biopsy was only done in those patients whose fnac was inconclusive. results: a total of 200 patients with enlarged cervical lymph nodes were included. ages varied from 15 to 42 (mean of 28.5). 112 females and 88 males were included. all of these patients underwent fnac and of these 34 patients with inconclusive fnac underwent excision biopsy of lymph nodes 154(77%) of the patients had tuberculous lymphadenitis 16(8%) of the patients had reactive hyperplasia 8(4%) of the patients had lymphoma 4(2%) of the patients had metastatic lymph nodes 18(9%) of the patients had chronic non specific ymphadenitis. constitutional symptoms and family history were absent in most of the cases with tuberculosis and posterior triangle of the neck and deep cervical group was predominantly involved in this group. most of the patients were from the lower socio-economic class,living in densely populated areas,maybe these were main etiological factors conclusion: tuberculosis is still quite a common clinical condition affecting the cervical lymph nodes in our study in patients presenting in surgical opd.