The proposed comprehensive disease classification system may more accurately reflect the clinical TB disease spectrum in children, is relevant to clinical management, and may be valuable to inform research on diagnostic tools and TB treatment strategies in children. Prospective studies are required to evaluate this approach in representative pediatric populations, correlating TB disease severity with diagnostic yield, treatment response, and application in existing and novel treatment strategies.

201 wordsKey Words: Tuberculosis, paediatric, diagnosis, case definition, NIH Running head title: NIH paediatric TB research definitionSummary: We apply and compare recently proposed International Consensus (NIH) with protocol-specified case definitions for paediatric TB and describe the disease spectrum and severity in a community-based prospective cohort diagnostic TB study using household contact tracing.