Wrist swelling – Is it tuberculosis?

Abstract

The hand and wrist are rare sites for tuberculosis (TB) and account for < 1% of all skeletal TB. Though rare, TB of the wrist is a cause of major morbidity. A common feature in the available reports on wrist TB is a delay in diagnosis causing residual stiffness and pain after treatment. Although TB of the wrist has a varied presentation, the majority of lesions respond to conservative treatment. We report a 12-year–old girl who presented with wrist swelling, having intercarpal, carpometacarpal, and radiocarpal joint involvement which turned out to be tuberculous and it healed with residual deformity.

Keywords

• Children
• musculoskeletal
• tuberculosis
• wrist