Intestinal tuberculosis masquerading as carcinoma colon: a case report of diagnostic quandary in low-resource setting

Intestinal tuberculosis (TB) is a rare condition comprising a majority of the extra-pulmonary TB cases. Owing to a similar clinical presentation, ultrasonographic and biopsy findings of intestinal TB with that of other abdominal pathologies such as carcinoma colon, their clinical delineation is very difficult unless aided with other modalities of investigations such as colonoscopy, culture of the biopsy material, etc. and even advanced methods such as polymerase chain reaction and gene X-pert of the biopsy material. Having all these investigations may not even lead to a correct diagnosis of intestinal TB as evidenced in the reported cases in the literature, advocating the need of diagnostic laparoscopy in the diagnosis of intestinal TB to eliminate extensive and unnecessary surgeries. Here, we present a case of intestinal TB in a 51-year-gentleman who got diagnosed in the course of treatment for a suspected carcinoma colon.