Zareen Faish, Ejaz Hussain, Zulfiqar Ali, Shabbir Hussain.
Predictive features of pulmonary Tuberculosis in children and use of Polymerase Chain Reaction for improved early diagnosis of pulmonary Tuberculosis in children.
Pak Paed J Jan ;28(1):7-14.

Children between the age of 1 month to 15 years with history of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) in family +/- cough/fever or both for greater than 2 weeks were enrolled in the study. Clinical, epidemiologic and laboratory findings were compared between three groups of pediatric patients with a presumptive diagnosis of PTB i.e., those with positive mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), those with positive clinical criteria for PTB but with negative PCR for AFB and those who did not meet the clinical diagnostic criteria or had positive PCR for AFB. Migliori criteria was used. RESULTS: In a total of 97 children, 29.89% children were classified as definitive PTB, 47.42% as probable PTB and 22.68% were classified as negative for PTB. History of contact was positive in 58.6% and positive Montoux test 62.18% in cases with definitive PTB. 37.9% of definitive PTB and 25% of probable PTB cases showed x-ray patterns highly characteristic of PTB. A triad of history of TB contacts within the family, history of cough for more than 2 weeks, and a positive Montoux test has a positive predictive value of 73% and sensitivity of 42% for PCR positive cases.

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