Clinical spectrum of tuberculosis in adolescents (10–19 years) in a tertiary care center of North India

Abstract

Background\objectives

There is limited literature available to characterize tuberculosis (TB) in adolescents despite them sharing a high burden of the disease. Ours is the first prospective study in India and worldwide to study the clinical profile of tuberculosis in adolescents aged 10–19 years.Methods: We enrolled 82 children and adolescents between March 2021 to March 2022. The diagnosis of TB was made on the basis of National Tuberculosis Elimination Program (NTEP) guidelines 2020. Adolescents were divided into 3 age groups: early (10–13 years), middle (14–17 years), and late adolescents (18–19 years)and the results were compared among the three groups. A two-sided p value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: The middle age adolescents comprised majority of our study population and females were more than males. The common presenting features were fever, chest pain, breathing difficulty with majority belonging to lower socioeconomic status. The pulmonary TB accounted for 56% and extrapulmonary constituted 44% of the cases. The notable extrapulmonary cases were disseminated TB with secondary lymphangiectasia, compressive myelopathy, sacroiliac joint arthropathy among others. Infiltrates/consolidation were the most frequent radiological findings in patients with pulmonary TB. The microbiological confirmation was available in 44% of the cases. The microbiological positivity was higher in histopathological specimens and in late adolescents. Two patients were rifampicin resistant. Conclusion: There was a varied clinical presentation of TB in this population. The extrapulmonary cases as well as the microbiological yield increased with increasing age of the cases.