Paediatric Tuberculosis: The Demographic Characteristics and Spectrum of Disease in Children in University Malaya Medical Centre

Background: Childhood tuberculosis remains a common and often fatal vaccine preventable disease worldwide. At this point of time, there is limited data available on tuberculosis among Malaysian paediatrics population. The present study is designed to analyse the spectrum of the disease and demographic patterns of affected children. This is a retrospective study is conducted among paediatric population seen in University Malaya Medical Centre from 2008 - 2017.

Objectives: To describe the spectrum of paediatric tuberculous (TB) disease in UMMC. To describe the demographic characteristics of children diagnosed with tuberculosis.

Methods: This is a retrospective, cross - sectional descriptive study on all paediatrics patients who were diagnosed with TB in UMMC over period of ten years from January 2008 until December 2017. All patients were identified through records obtained from attendance to DOTS clinic, Paediatric Infectious Disease clinic, and Ministry of Health CDCIS eNotifikasi website.

Results: There were a total of 156 (75.4%) eligible candidates recruited into the study; 102 (65.4%) and 54 (34.6%) patients in the confirmed TB and clinical compatible TB groups respectively. The majority of affected patients predominantly were female (n=91; 58.3%). Paediatric population aged between 12 to 18 years of age contributed the higher number of patients (n=99). In terms of ethnic groups Malays (n=92) were predominantly affected followed by Indians (n=27) and Chinese (n=25). The pulmonary TB is the commonest form of the TB spectrum followed by extrapulmonary, and miliary / disseminated TB.

Conclusion: Children and adolescents who were exposed to TB patients should be screened so that early detection and intervention could be carried out. Tuberculosis in paediatric population has specific characteristics that are important to understand for health personnel working in clinical medicine. Pulmonary TB is still the commonest form tuberculosis in children.