An Unexpected Diagnosis of Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Pulmonary tuberculosis is rare in critically ill cancer patients. We report the case of a man treated for Hodgkin’s lymphoma and admitted to the ICU for acute respiratory failure. All investigations were negative, and he died with a presumptive diagnosis of bleomycin-related pulmonary toxicity and Escherichia coli endocarditis. Several weeks after his death, cultures of sputum and BAL fluid samples were found positive for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Postmortem pulmonary biopsies confirmed the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis.