Introduction:

Tuberculosis is a reemerging disease, also important as a major cause of disability and death in many regions of the world. Abdominal tuberculosis represents 11% of all extrapulmonary forms; 0.5% of all new cases of HIV infection and 10-15% of those not infected with HIV. In Las Tunas Municipality, the case of a 17-year-old male adolescent who was diagnosed with this disease was reported after the patient presented symptoms of recurrent abdominal pain for several months before diagnosis.

Objective:

To update information on the diagnosis and treatment of abdominal tuberculosis.

Methods:

A literature review on intestinal tuberculosis was carried out with the literature found in databases available on the Infomed network, such as PubMed, Hinari, The Cochrane Library, SciELO, MEDLINE, and MedicLatina, with a historical-logical and analysis-synthesis approach.

Conclusions:

The early diagnosis of intestinal tuberculosis without active pulmonary tuberculosis continues to be a health concern, since clinical, biochemical, imaging, and endoscopic parameters still lack specificity, and, in some cases, resistance to usual treatment has been shown.

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