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World J Gastrointest Surg. Aug 27, 2017; 9(8): 174-181
Published online Aug 27, 2017. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v9.i8.174
Abdominal tuberculosis: Is there a role for surgery?
Elroy Patrick Weledji, Benjamin Thumamo Pokam
Elroy Patrick Weledji, Department of Surgery, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Buea, PO Box 63, Buea, Cameroon
Benjamin Thumamo Pokam, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Buea, PO Box 63, Buea, Cameroon
Author contributions: Weledji EP was the main author who contributed to conception, design and drafting of the article; Pokam BT contributed to literature search.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Elroy Patrick Weledji, BSc (Lond), MSc (Lond), MBBChBAO (Ireland), FRCS (Edinburgh), Department of Surgery, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Buea, PO Box 63, Buea, Cameroon. nfo@ubuea.cm
Telephone: +237-69-9922144
Received: December 21, 2016
Peer-review started: December 25, 2016
First decision: January 16, 2017
Revised: May 22, 2017
Accepted: June 30, 2017
Article in press: July 3, 2017
Published online: August 27, 2017
Core Tip

Core tip: It is important to bear in mind the non-specific manifestations of abdominal tuberculosis. There is no gold standard for the diagnosis and high clinical suspicion is required. Diagnostic laparoscopy is increasingly useful but joint decision making with physician familiar with anti-tuberculous therapy is important. Surgery is reserved for abdominal complications.