Oral Tuberculosis Mimicking Oral Cavity Cancer With Pulmonary Metastasis: A Case Report

Oral tuberculosis (TB) is an uncommon manifestation, accounting for only a small fraction of extrapulmonary TB cases and often mimicking malignant lesions by its chronic ulcerative or mass-forming appearance.Such presentations frequently lead to misdiagnosis as squamous cell carcinoma or other head and neck malignancies.When pulmonary lesions coexist, distinguishing oral TB from metastatic cancer becomes even more challenging.A 41-year-old male presented with a painful oral mass, accompanied by multiple pulmonary nodules on chest CT, raising strong suspicion of primary oral malignancy with lung metastasis.Initial clinical impression favored a malignant disease due to the mass-like appearance of the oral lesion and radiologic features of disseminated pulmonary nodules.However, incisional biopsy of the oral mass revealed granulomatous inflammation, consistent with TB.Similar cases of oral lesions leading to the diagnosis of systemic or pulmonary TB have been reported, emphasizing the importance of tissue confirmation.