Management of Children with Tuberculosis

Ameneh Khatami; Philip N Britton; Ben J Marais

doi:10.1016/j.ccm.2019.08.003

Management of Children with Tuberculosis

Clin Chest Med. 2019 Dec;40(4):797-810. doi: 10.1016/j.ccm.2019.08.003.

Authors

Ameneh Khatami¹, Philip N Britton², Ben J Marais²

Affiliations

¹ The Children's Hospital at Westmead Clinical School, Level 3 Children's Hospital Westmead, Locked Bag 4001, Hawkesbury Road, Westmead, New South Wales 2145, Australia. Electronic address: Ameneh.khatami@gmail.com.
² The Children's Hospital at Westmead Clinical School, Level 3 Children's Hospital Westmead, Locked Bag 4001, Hawkesbury Road, Westmead, New South Wales 2145, Australia.

PMID: 31731985
DOI: 10.1016/j.ccm.2019.08.003

Abstract

Children carry a significant tuberculosis disease burden in settings with poor epidemic control and high levels of transmission. Even in high-resource settings, the diagnosis of tuberculosis in children can be challenging, 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 pediatric 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.

Keywords: Child; Diagnosis; Management; Multi-drug resistant; Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Prevention; Treatment; Tuberculosis.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Antitubercular Agents / pharmacology
Antitubercular Agents / therapeutic use*
Child
Child, Preschool
Humans
Tuberculosis / therapy*

Substances

Antitubercular Agents