Miliary tuberculosis in a Caucasian male transplant recipient and the role of intravenous immunoglobulin as an immunosuppressive sparing agent

Abstract

Opportunistic infections are a common and anticipated accompaniment of transplantation, but are generally somewhat predictable in their timing and epidemiology. The authors report here a case of miliary tuberculosis occurring within 3 weeks of transplantation, in a patient not expected to be significantly at risk, and with a normal chest X-ray at the time of transplantation. A 25-year-old Caucasian male dialysis patient who received two paediatric kidneys as an en bloc renal transplant developed fever 3 weeks following transplantation; this eventually proved to be miliary tuberculosis. As well as antituberculous therapy and a significant reduction in the patient's conventional immunosuppress..