[A case report of hepatic tuberculosis].

Tuberculosis (TB) is a common infection in developing countries of Asia and Africa. Though pulmonary TB is the most frequent presentation, extrapulmonary diseases involving lymph nodes, terminal ileum and peritoneum are not infrequent. Hepatic involvement has been described in 90% of miliary TB, 75% of extrahepatic TB and 25% of pulmonary TB.1 Presenting symptoms in these settings are mainly those of miliary tuberculosis.2 Essop et al have shown that hepatic TB may account for about 1.2% of all TB diagnosed at general hospital.3 However, isolated hepatic TB without disseminated disease is rare.2 High index of suspicion is required for correct diagnosis and it may only be diagnosed on histopathological examination of liver biopsy specimens. This becomes even harder when the patients exhibit no clinical symptoms. We report a case of isolated hepatic TB that was otherwise asymptomatic and incidentally diagnosed on liver biopsy during elaborative assessment of chronic hepatitis B virus infection of the patient.