Preoperative Ultra-Short-Course Chemotherapy Combined with Surgery for the Treatment of Chest Wall Tuberculosis

Figures & data

Table 1 General Clinical Data of the 263 Included Cases

Characteristics	Simple Chest Wall Tuberculosis	Composite Chest Wall Tuberculosis	All Patients	P value
	(n=119)	(n=144)	(n=263)
Age, years [median (IQR)]	32(25–48)	29(23–47)	31(24–48)	0.1460
Sex (n)
Male	83	93	176	0.1257
Female	36	51	87
Lesion location (n)
Anterior chest wall	71	93	164	0.3724
Lateral chest wall	31	37	68
Posterior chest wall	17	14	31
Local feature (n)
Local lumps	74	81	154
Sinus tract	25	34	59	0.7524
Dumbbell-shaped abscess	20	29	49
History of prior treatment
Operation history (n)*	36	12	48
Other sites’ tuberculosis history
Pulmonary tuberculosis		88	88
Tuberculous pleurisy		36	36
Vertebral tuberculosis		10	10
Lymph node tuberculosis		8	8
Abdominal tuberculosis		2	2
Pre-operation anti-tuberculosis time (days)
Distribution (n)
1–7	8	10	18	0.4911
8–14	72	60	132
15–21	25	33	58
22–28	14	13	27
>28 d	0	28	28
Postoperative hospital stay (days)
Distribution (n)
7–14	7	21	28	0.3393
15–21	55	55	110
22–28	48	42	90
>28	9	26	35
Recurrence (n)	3	7	10

Note: *The surgery for chest wall tuberculosis included simple abscess removal, incision, and drainage.

Figure 1 Imaging findings of chest wall tuberculosis (TB). (A) Sinus formation caused by TB lesions piercing the chest wall. (B) Chest wall TB lesion breached through the intercostal muscle to form a dumbbell-like abscess. (C) In some patients with chest wall TB, the lesion showed no signs of healing after surgical treatment (no anti-TB treatment). (D) Secretion at the incision site. (E) Chest wall TB lesion only formed in local thoracic masses. (F) After the patient depicted in panel E underwent chest wall lesion removal, his lesion showed no residue and the wound healed well.

Table 2 Anti-Tuberculosis Time Comparison

	Preoperative Anti-Tuberculosis Time (Day)	Postoperative Hospital Stay (Day)
Simple chest wall tuberculosis	12.82^a±5.87	21.04^b±5.11
Composite chest wall tuberculosis	20.57±15.16	22.42±9.68
All chest wall tuberculosis	17.06±12.49	21.91±7.89

Note: ^aP<0.0001, ^bP=0.0868.

Figure 2 Histopathological sections of chest wall TB lesions, showing necrotic material (A) and granulomatous lesions with multinucleated giant cells (B). Pathology confirmed that the lesion was tuberculous granulomatous inflammation.