A 55-year-old infertile woman was referred to our clinic for further investigation on extragenital tuberculosis, as tuberculous endometritis was strongly suspected by cyto logy of her vaginal smear carried out on the occasion of the mass examination for gynecologic cancer screening. Her vaginal smear revealed epithelioid cell clusters which are characteristic for tuberculosis, and cultures of her vaginal discharge were positive for M. tuberculosis consecutively. Moreover, she was exposed for tuberculosis infection from her father who died of active pulmonary tuberculosis when she was ten years old. Her tuberculin test was strongly positive, and her chest radiography showed no abnormality, but a small nodular shadow evaluated as primary focus of tuberculosis located beneath the pleura of the right lower lung field was confirmed by chest CT. In addition, calci - fication of her para-aortic abdominal lymphnode was detected by simple abdominal Xray. Based on these data, she was diagnosed as tuberculous endometritis via abdominal cavity, and three antituberculous drugs, namely RFP, INH and EB, were administrated. The mycobacterial cultures of vaginal discharge converted to negative, and chemotherapy was terminated after 9 months treatment.
A risk factor leading to the onset of gynecologic tuberculosis, in this case was an exposure to infection from her father. In order to evaluate risk factors relating to the development of gynecologic tuberculosis, bibliographic studies were made on 19 cases of tuberculous endometrites reported recently in Japan regarding their age, its pathogenesis and immuno-suppressive conditions, and the summarized results were as follows.
1. approximately 80% of them were elderly, namely 79% were above 50 years, 63% above 60years, and 26% above 70 years.
2. 50% of them were caused by endogenous reactivation.
3. 25% of them were immuno-compromised host.
It can be concluded that more than 70% of the patients with tuberculous endometritis had risk factors on the host side to develop tuberculosis.
