Background: Extrapulmonary tuberculosis accounts for up to one third of all cases of tuberculosis and children show a higher predisposition to the development of extra-pulmonary tuberculosis.
Aim: To review the clinical features of the extrapulmonary tuberculosis in children.
Methods: forty one children with extrapulmonary tuberculosis followed in the Children Hospital of Tunis between January 1995 and December 2007 were reviewed.
Results: Extrapulmonary tuberculosis constitutes 57.9% of all cases of tuberculosis. Male to female ratio was 0.7 and the mean age was 7.5 years. The most commonly involved sites were the peripheral lymphadenitis (14 cases) followed by abdominal (11 cases), central nervous system (7 cases), osteoarticular (5 cases) and multifocal (4 cases). A positive family history of active tuberculosis was detected in 22.5% of the cases. Diagnosis delay was 4.7 months. Sequelae observed during the follow up were: neurosensory in 5 cases, and vertebral deformation in 1 case.
Conclusion: extrapulmonary tuberculosis represents an important fraction of tuberculosis in our study. The most common form is lymph nodes localization followed by abdominal and central system nervous forms. Neurosensory sequelae were frequent in central system nervous tuberculosis.