Tuberculosis of prosthetic knee with simultaneous pulmonary infection with nontuberculous mycobacteria

Abstract

We present a case of prosthetic knee tuberculosis (TB), the management of which was complicated by simultaneous isolation of nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) from sputum. The TB was treated with medical therapy alone. The NTM isolated likely represented transient colonization and resolved during TB therapy. However, the positivity of the patient's sputum smear for NTM led to unnecessary isolation.