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CASE REPORT article

Front. Med.
Sec. Pulmonary Medicine
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1520644
This article is part of the Research Topic Case Reports in Pulmonary Medicine 2024 View all 24 articles

Should Miliary Tuberculosis Be Considered As A Possible Cause Of Infertility In The New Era: A Case Report and Literature Review

Provisionally accepted
Aleksandra Cvetkovic Aleksandra Cvetkovic 1*Ana Blanka Protic Ana Blanka Protic 1Jelena Jovanovic Jelena Jovanovic 1Tatjana Adzic-Vukicevic Tatjana Adzic-Vukicevic 1,2
  • 1 Clinic of Pulmonology, Clinical Center of Serbia, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
  • 2 Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    1) Introduction: Miliary tuberculosis (MTB) is a potentially lethal form of tuberculosis that can occur in pregnant women, especially those who have conceived by in vitro fertilization (IVF). (2)Case description: a 28-year-old, female patient, after IVF's fourth attempt, at the end of the first trimester, developed a dry cough, high fever, abdominal pain, and vaginal bleeding, which led to the pregnancy termination without resolution of systemic symptoms despite various antibiotics. Because of the appearance of headaches, brain nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) was done, and diffuse nodular brain lesions were found, which were initially interpreted as metastatic cancer disease. Afterward, the miliary changes were discovered in various organ systems, and the presence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis was confirmed. The antituberculosis treatment was initiated with the standard antituberculosis regimen with excellent clinical response and resolution of miliary changes. (3) Conclusions: Miliary tuberculosis is more common in cases of pregnancies related to IVF. It should be taken into consideration as a possible risk for infertility in the presence of nonspecific symptoms.Screening methods for latent tuberculosis in IVF patients are needed even in a low-burden TB country.

    Keywords: Miliary tuberculosis, Pregnancy, in vitro fertilization, Latent Tuberculosis, low TB burden country

    Received: 31 Oct 2024; Accepted: 13 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Cvetkovic, Protic, Jovanovic and Adzic-Vukicevic. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Aleksandra Cvetkovic, Clinic of Pulmonology, Clinical Center of Serbia, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

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