Childhood and adolescent tuberculosis in northern Taiwan: an institutional experience during 1994-1999.
This study evaluated the clinical characteristics of childhood and adolescent tuberculosis (TB) at the end of the twentieth century in a referral children's hospital in northern Taiwan. The hospital charts were reviewed retrospectively of children/adolescents aged less than 18 y who were seen in a children's hospital in northern Taiwan between 1994 and 1999 and diagnosed with TB. A total of 62 individuals was diagnosed during this period. The patients' demographic data, presenting symptoms, clinical features, bacteriological results, drug susceptibility and tuberculin skin-test results were analysed. Most diagnosed cases lay in one of two main age ranges, younger than 5 y and adolescents. The presenting symptoms of study subjects were typically non-specific. Bone involvement occurred for 21 patients (33.9%) and was the most common extrapulmonary manifestation. Mycobacterium tuberculosis was isolated from 47 patients (75.8%). Five isolates were resistant to pyrazinamide, three to streptomycin and one to isoniazid, but no multidrug resistant isolates of TB were detected from culture-proven cases. Seventeen of 47 (36.2%) culture-proven patients revealed negative acid-fast staining initially but, subsequently, M. tuberculosis was isolated from various clinical specimens using a standard method at a later date. The tuberculin skin test was positive for 24 of 32 patients (75%) who received such an examination.


CONCLUSIONS
Extrathoracic TB was more common in children below 5 y of age than their adolescent counterparts, and chiefly involved the peripheral long bones. The potential drug resistance of M. tuberculosis in childhood and adolescent TB did not appear to have been a major problem in northern Taiwan before the year 2000.
Wong
K S
KS
Division of Pediatric Pulmonology, Chang Gung Children's Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ROC. pchest@adm.cgmh.org.tw
Chiu
C H
CH
Huang
Y C
YC
Lin
T Y
TY
D000293:Adolescent; D001706:Biopsy / Q000379:methods; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009169:Mycobacterium tuberculosis / Q000302:isolation & purification; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012882:Skin Tests / Q000379:methods; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology; D018088:Tuberculosis, Multidrug-Resistant / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology; D014394:Tuberculosis, Osteoarticular / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology; D014397:Tuberculosis, Pulmonary / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology