Clinical Profile of Tuberculosis in Children: A Prospective Study from Tertiary Care Institute in Sub Himalayan Region

Background: Tuberculosis has the dubious distinction of being the most persistent scourge of humankind.Childhood tuberculosis remains an important cause of morbidity and mortality in the developing countries despite the advances in diagnostic tests .TB in children is difficult to confirm and remains under diagnosed due to lack of specific diagnostic tools and most of the children present with non-specific signs and symptoms which are overlooked.The present study was planned to study the clinical profile and diagnosis of Pediatric Tuberculosis in a tertiary care teaching institute of Northern India.Aims and Objectives: To study the clinico-epidemiological profile of Tuberculosis in children aged 3 months to 18 years.Methods: This was a prospective cross sectional study conducted in a tertiary care teaching institute of Northern India over a period of one year.After approval from IEC and obtaining consent from parents, presumptive TB cases in the age group of 3 months to 18 years who met the inclusion criteria were recruited, additional investigations like chest X-ray, Mantoux test were ordered and CBNAAT, MGIT culture were done to confirm the diagnosis.Data collected in study tool was transferred into MS excel sheet for further processing and analysis by SPSS version 22. Results: Out of 128 presumptive TB subjects, 46 had extra pulmonary TB and 30 had pulmonary TB. 47.36% were male with a male: female ratio of 0.9:1, with majority (76.32%) in the age group 11-18 years.The commonest presenting symptoms were fever (71.05%) followed by cough (61.84%) and weight loss (39.47%).Family history of contact could only be obtained in 20 patients (26.31%).Pallor was the most common sign observed in 32(42.10%).All the subjects had received BCG vaccine and most of the subjects 58(76.3%)belonged to middle socio economic group.Conclusion: Childhood Tuberculosis presents with non-specific signs and symptoms in the pediatric age group and diagnosis of childhood tuberculosis requires a detailed history, good clinical examination and thorough investigative workup as well.