Characteristics of Pulmonary Tuberculosis Among Children With Congenital Hypothyroidism: Situation in West Java, Indonesia

Background: The prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) in children was high in Indonesia. PTB can exist with many other diseases, such as congenital hypothyroidism (CH) because they are susceptible to various microorganisms. CH patients was hospitalized commonly due to lung infection. Until now, there is no data and previous studies of the characteristics of PTB among CH children.

Objective: To identify the characteristics of PTB in CH children and to determine its prevalence.

Methods: A cross-sectional study conducted from January 2012 to December 2016 involving 205 CH children who were registered in Hasan Sadikin General Hospital Bandung. We identified prevalence of PTB, age, gender, residency, nutritional status, hypothyroid screening status at birth, hospitalization frequencies, and length of stay of hospitalization.

Results: Seventeen (8.3%) of 205 CH patients was diagnosed of having PTB. The mean age of them was 2.5+2.9 months. Most of PTB patients were infants (52.9%) and male (82.4%) were preponderance. There are mostly (64.7%) living outside of Bandung city with low educated and socioeconomic condition. We found almost all of the patient was malnourished (76.4%). Newborn hypothyroidism screening was not done in all CH patients. Most of them was diagnosed PTB when hospitalized for second admission (47%) or more (41%). The hospitalization length of stay amongst patients with PTB was between 1-2 weeks (58.8%).

Conclusions: PTB prevalence in CH patients is low. Most of them was diagnosed PTB when hospitalized for second admission or more because of lung infection and PTB may extend length of stay. All of them is never done newborn hypothyroid screening.

Keywords: Pulmonary tuberculosis, congenital hypothyroidism, malnutrition