Tuberculosis: what is the yield of associate investigations in non-BCG-immunized children with positive tuberculin skin tests?
METHODS
Urban county health department in Tarrant County, Texas, USA.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the yield of associate investigations in non-bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) immunized children with positive tuberculin skin tests (TSTs).


METHODS
We compared the results of associate investigations of the contacts of 38 TST-positive, non-BCG-immunized pre-school children with the results of contact investigations of 290 culture-confirmed persons with tuberculosis (TB).


RESULTS
Associate investigations were more likely than contact investigations to identify persons with culture-confirmed TB and positive TSTs. Contacts identified through associate investigation of non-BCG-immunized pre-school children were 9.4 (95%CI 4.2-22.5) times more likely to have culture-confirmed TB and 2.3 (95%CI 2.0-2.7) times more likely to have positive TSTs than contacts of persons with culture-confirmed TB.


CONCLUSIONS
While conducting associate investigations is labor intensive, these data indicate that associate investigation of pre-school non-BCG-immunized children should be assigned priority in TB control activities, at least equal to the importance of investigating the contacts of culture-proven TB.
Moonan
P K
PK
Department of Medicine, University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas 76104, USA.
Marruffo
M
M
Manguia-Bayona
G
G
Sahbazian
B
B
Bayona
M
M
Burgess
G
G
Weis
S E
SE
D001500:BCG Vaccine; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013781:Texas / Q000453:epidemiology; D014374:Tuberculin Test; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014505:Urban Population; D014611:Vaccination / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
D001500:BCG Vaccine