Differences Between Pediatric Pulmonary and Extra-Pulmonary Tuberculosis: A Warning Sign for the Future

Abstract

BackgroundTuberculosis (TB) remains a major global health problem. The childhood tuberculosis has some unique features different which makes the diagnosis more complicated. Here we described the epidemiologic, clinical and microbiologic features of children with extra pulmonary and pulmonary TB.MethodsThe data of the patients <14 years with active TB were collected and compared in pulmonary (PTB) and extrapulmonary TB (EXPTB) patients.ResultsA total of 128 cases was included. Forty-two cases occurred in children were < 5 years of age; 41 cases between 6–10 years and 45 cases > 10 years. PTB was present in 75,0% of the cases, and EXPTB was present in 25% of cases. There was no significant difference between the EXPTB and PTB by means of distribution of age groups (p=0,201). The rate of patients free of constitutional symptoms were significantly higher in EXPTB compared to PTB(p=0,000). There was no significant difference between EXPTB and PTB by means of sources detection(p=0,069).ConclusionTB is still a major public health problem. EXPTB has an insidious and silent onset without any constitutional symptoms, and both microbiological confirmation and the source by an adult are not frequently found. Moreover, detection of the adult source is mandatory for controlling the TB disease in children

Çocukluk çağı tüberküloz olgularında klinik ve laboratuvar bulguların değerlendirilmesi

“…In our subjects with pulmonary TB, the most common symptom was cough, and the others included fever, weight loss, and night sweats. Although there are data reporting that constitutional symptoms such as fever, weight loss, and malaise are observed with a lower rate in EPTB, no significant difference was found between PTB and EPTB in terms of clinical symptoms in our study ( 24 ).…”

Clinical and epidemiological features of tuberculosis in children and adolescents

“…However, several studies have been investigating the importance of the childhood HIV/TB coinfection and its relevance to public health. They showed a TB risk varying from 20 to 30-fold to those infected with HIV and predicted that up to 5% of the children with TB were also HIV positive (33)(34)(35) .…”

Pediatric Extrapulmonary Tuberculosis, One Center Six Years Experience

“…Beş yaşın altındaki çocuklarda, latent tüberkülozun hastalığa ilerlemesi, miliyer tüberküloz ve menenjit gibi yaygın hastalıkların görülme riski artmıştır (5) . İmmün yetmezliği olan çocuklar ve adölesanlarda akciğer dışı tüberküloz gelişme riski artmıştır (6) .…”