[Tuberculous cerebral abscess. Morphopathologic study (author's transl)].

A 73-year-old patient with a cerebral abscess of tuberculous etiology localized in the left parietooccipital region is presented. Clinically it had behaved like an expansive process. The inside of the abscess contained a purulent exudate with polynuclear cells and necrotic material. The wall of the abscess was formed by a predominantly histiocytic internal layer and an external one composed by histiocytes with the morphology of epithelioid cells. No tuberculous granulomas were found. The histiocytes contained a large number of acid-alcohol resistant bacilli. In the exudate Mycobacterium tuberculosis hominis was bacteriologically isolated. After the surgical operation the patient developed an acute tuberculous sepsis with tuberculous exudative meningitis and miliary dissemination in various organs. As regards the pathogenesis of the tuberculous cerebral abscess the authors consider the possible influence of a deficitary immune state of the patient and the aggressiveness of the infective organism.