Tuberculosis-related middle ear otitis: a rare occurrence.

Tuberculosis was a serious public health problem for several decades8. After a period in which the disease had apparently been under control by the use of various therapeutic procedures, it is once again a cause for concern, as much because of the increase in resistance to the drugs used as by the increase in the number of immunodeficient patients, especially among those infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)7. Between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s, the combination of a deteriorating public health infrastructure, inadequate instutional control of infection, urban crowding and epidemic of HIV infection resulted in a resurgence of tuberculosis3 7.