Mantoux and contact positivity in tuberculosis.
OBJECTIVE
To study the role of Mantoux and contact history in various forms of Childhood tuberculosis.


METHODS
605 children registered with TB clinic of Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children, Chennai over a 5 year period from January 2000 to October 2005 with various forms of tuberculosis were recruited in the study. Clinical examination findings, basic investigations, chest skiagrams, computerized tomography (CT) wherever warranted, sputum or gastric aspirates for AFB smear, histopathology wherever possible were analyzed.


RESULTS
The study showed that Mantoux positivity in various forms of tuberculosis studied is 34.7%. The positivity of Mantoux was highest in lymph node tuberculosis (53%) and the lowest with CNS tuberculosis (21.2%). Among the other forms, Mantoux positivity was 36.4% in TB abdomen, 44.4% in Skeletal TB, 30.3% in pulmonary tuberculosis. The contact positivity was 30.4% in the sample studied.


CONCLUSIONS
The study also reflects that the extra pulmonary forms of tuberculosis seems to be more common in the pediatric population which constituted 79.8% of the cases included in the study.
Vijayasekaran
D
D
Department of Pulmonology, Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children, Egmore, Chennai, India. Vijsekar@Hotmail.com
Kumar
R Arvind
RA
Gowrishankar
N C
NC
Nedunchelian
K
K
Sethuraman
S
S
D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D014374:Tuberculin Test; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000175:diagnosis*