Introduction:

Tuberculous cold abscess is the most common clinical form of skin tuberculosis.

Objective:

To familiarize general physicians with the clinical characteristics of tuberculous cold abscesses to ensure their diagnosis and specific treatment at the Surgery Department of the N'gola Kimbanda General Hospital in Namibe, Angola in 2018.

Method:

Literature on the subject was reviewed in scientific databases such as Medline, PubMed, SciELO, Scopus, Clinical Key and LILACS with the following descriptors: extrapulmonary tuberculosis and tuberculous cold abscess.

Results:

The patients, three males and two females, three adults and two infants, all of them malnourished, with a history of pulmonary tuberculosis and Pott's Disease, who were sent for consultation with a diagnosis of lipoma. In all cases, tuberculous cold abscesses were diagnosed, 3 of them in lumbar location, 1 in thoracolumbar and 1 in lumbosacral locations, confirmed by microbiology and treated according to the protocols of the specialties of Surgery and Pneumology.

Conclusions:

It is necessary that students of Medicine, general physicians and specialists who face these patients inside and outside of Cuba to gain in knowledge with the semiological characteristics of the tuberculous cold abscess, also known as tuberculous gum, in order to identify it in the patients in risk groups, and to guarantee their specific medical-surgical treatment to avoid the disability and mortality associated to this infection that still constitutes a major issue.

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