A review outlining the approach to diagnosis of tuberculosis in children indicates that even in high-resource settings, an accurate diagnosis can be difficult. Children carry a significant tuberculosis disease burden in settings with poor epidemic control and high levels of transmission, but an accurate diagnosis can be achieved by adopting a systematic approach.
This review outlines the general principles of tuberculosis prevention in children, including epidemic control, infection control, contact tracing and preventive therapy, and vaccination; diagnosing paediatric tuberculosis, including specimen collection and microbiological confirmation, highlighting key differences from adults; and tuberculosis treatment in children, including treatment of severe disease that mostly occurs in young children and drug-resistant tuberculosis.
The review, by TB-CRE investigator Professor Ben Marais and his colleagues Ameneh Khatami and Philip Britton, all from Children’s Hospital Westmead Clinical School, was published online this week by the journal Clinics in Chest Medicine.
Khatami A, Britton PN, Marais BJ. Management of Children with Tuberculosis. Clin Chest Med 2019;40:797-810. doi: 10.1016/j.ccm.2019.08.003