A 48-year-old African American female presented with a one-month history of headaches and nausea. Her only significant past medical history was diabetes. Her social history was negative for such risk factors as a high-risk profession in the healthcare field, recent incarceration, known contact with persons diagnosed with active tuberculosis or recent travel to areas in which tuberculosis is endemic. Her physical exam was unremarkable, and she had no focal neurological deficits. She was afebrile and hemodynamically stable. She presented to an outside facility where she had a computerized tomography (CT) scan of her head performed, which showed a posterior fossa mass with moderate hydrocephalus. This was followed by a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain with and without contrast, which revealed a large right cerebellar ring-enhancing mass (Figures -). The primary concern at that time was that this mass could possibly be a primary brain glioma like a high-grade astrocytoma or a medulloblastoma. The patient was transferred to another hospital for neurosurgical evaluation and excision of the mass. She underwent an exploratory posterior fossa craniectomy, cerebellar exploration and decompression, but no mass was identified at that time. Due to persistent headaches, she then had a repeat exploration of posterior fossa 15 days later, and identification and excision of the cerebellar mass occurred. Histopathology from the procedure revealed necrotizing granulomas (Figure ), and stains specific for acid fast bacilli and fungus were both negative. Subsequently, the brain tissue grew Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The patient reported no prior knowledge of having tuberculosis, nor did she endorse exposure to patients with active tuberculosis. She previously had purified protein derivative (PPD) tests for employment, which had been negative. She was not immunocompromised and had recently been tested negative for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) six months prior.
The patient was a 12-year-old boy, with history of sputum-positive pulmonary tuberculosis for which he was already on anti-tubercular treatment for 3 months. He presented to us with an episode of generalized seizure which had been preceded by isolated right sixth nerve palsy, episodes of seizures and gradual onset, progressive quadriparesis over the past 1 month. On examination, he had postictal confusion. Fundus examination revealed papilledema. He had a grade 3–4/5 spastic quadriparesis.\nA magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain revealed multi-lobar tuberculomas of the brain with lesions in the brainstem and cerebellum []. MRI of the spine revealed cervical (C2–3, C7–D1), dorsal (D7, D10, D11–12) and lumbar (D12–L1 including conus medullaris), multiple homogeneous enhancing oval lesions []. Only a few lesions showed characteristic ring enhancement. Mantoux was positive (15 mm induration at 48 h) and tuberculosis-interferon-γ-release-assays (Quantiferon Tuberculosis Gold In-Tube) test were positive. Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) was 40 and serology for HIV was negative. The patient was continued anti-tubercular treatment and was supplemented with steroids for about a month. The boy showed gradual but definite clinical improvement by the time of discharge 7 days later. At 3 month follow-up, he was ambulant without support. Follow-up MRI of the brain and spine revealed reduction in the enhancement of the lesions with definite ring enhancing pattern now discernable [Figure –]. Complete resolution of lesions on the last follow-up at the 8th month of treatment was seen [Figure –] and clinically he was ambulant with improvement in his VIth nerve palsy. We decided to continue anti-tubercular treatment for 18 months and the end of which he was free from any neurological deficits and back to productive life.