Cutaneous tuberculosis: a rare presentation of malignancy.

Abstract

An 88-year-old woman presented with fever, a neck ulcer, and multiple subcutaneous nodules on her upper extremities and thorax. Her condition was initially diagnosed as malignancy associated with metastatic disease to the skin. A subcutaneous nodule was aspirated. A gram stain of the aspirate revealed weakly gram-positive bacilli, and a stain for acid-fast bacilli was positive. Mycobacterium tuberculosis was isolated from a culture of a specimen of the skin lesion.