Delays in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Tuberculous Lymphadenitis in Low-Incidence Countries: A Systematic Review

Early detection and treatment of tuberculosis (TB) is essential to achieve the goals appointed in the WHO End TB Strategy. Tuberculous lymphadenitis (TBLA) is the most common manifestation of extrapulmonary TB, but the diagnosis can be challenging in low-incidence countries due to sparse and inconsistent clinical features, resulting in delay. We aimed to summarize and discuss the current literature on patient delay, health care delay, and total delay (i.e., time to first health care contact, diagnosis, and treatment) in patients with TBLA in TB low-incidence countries. A systematic review using PubMed was conducted, searching for studies set in TB low-incidence countries (defined as <20 per 100,000 citizens) that reported on health care seeking behaviour, patient delay, health care delay, and/or total delay. Studies were categorized by type of delay and compared. We identified 11 heterogeneous studies with highly variable observations. Mean patient delay varied from 55 to 154 days (range, 14–1,461), mean health care delay from 44 to 94 days (range, 7–224) and median total delay from 77.5 to 122 days (range, 0–2,820). Evidently, more comprehensive insights into the diagnostic pathway and delay in TBLA patients are warranted.