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Found Hard Lump Under Armpit. Suspected To Be Due To TB. Taking Medicine. Any Suggestion?

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Posted on Thu, 14 Feb 2013
Question: A skin abscess / hard lump under armpit of left hand. It appeared recently after doing a trimming to remove hair around the area.In the past 4 years back i gt such an abscess under right armpit which was removed and told by the doctor that it could be due to tb(gt borderlevel in tb test then) so tuk medication for tb for one and half year...do u think that could be the reason again...the lump is very small compared to last time..plz suggest
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Answered by Dr. Raju A.T (1 hour later)
Hi,

Thanks for your query.

Yes, there are chances of recurrence of Tuberculosis if the TB strain involved was resistant to the drugs you were on for a year and half. In addition, faulty dosage and irregular medication can also lead to such recurrence. It is very common with Tuberculosis to recur.

Other cause for such a recurrence of abscess in a lymph node previously affected by TB could be by a bacterial infection. This happens due to altered morphology of the lymph-node tissue affected by TB making it prone to be affected by other virulent bacteria.

A better modality to test whether it is a recurrence of Tb or a secondary bacterial infection is by getting an FNAC (Fine needle aspiration cytology) done. In this test, a small amount of the tissue from the lymph node is drained using a small needle and examined under the microscope. This gives a detailed idea about the exact diagnosis.

Hope I answered your query.

Please do let me know if there are any other concerns.

Regards,
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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Shanthi.E
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Dr. Raju A.T

General & Family Physician

Practicing since :2008

Answered : 4923 Questions

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Found Hard Lump Under Armpit. Suspected To Be Due To TB. Taking Medicine. Any Suggestion?

Hi,

Thanks for your query.

Yes, there are chances of recurrence of Tuberculosis if the TB strain involved was resistant to the drugs you were on for a year and half. In addition, faulty dosage and irregular medication can also lead to such recurrence. It is very common with Tuberculosis to recur.

Other cause for such a recurrence of abscess in a lymph node previously affected by TB could be by a bacterial infection. This happens due to altered morphology of the lymph-node tissue affected by TB making it prone to be affected by other virulent bacteria.

A better modality to test whether it is a recurrence of Tb or a secondary bacterial infection is by getting an FNAC (Fine needle aspiration cytology) done. In this test, a small amount of the tissue from the lymph node is drained using a small needle and examined under the microscope. This gives a detailed idea about the exact diagnosis.

Hope I answered your query.

Please do let me know if there are any other concerns.

Regards,