Complicated forms of primary tuberculosis in children and adolescents

Abstract

Analysis of complicated forms of pediatric primary tuberculosis is presented, based on x-ray findings of 45 patients, treated in the ‘Phthisiatry’ Research & Practice Center, Sakha Republic (Yakutia). The study revealed that clinical x-ray pattern of primary tuberculosis complex correlated with age factor. We observed that due to age-specific host responsiveness differences, a complicated clinical progression of primary tuberculosis complex occurred more often in adolescents and infants, and manifested as bronchopulmonary involvement with generalization of the process spreading to other organs and systems. In preschool and junior school age, an unfavorable tuberculosis progression was far rarer exclusion and manifested predominantly as lymphogenous seeding.