Basic forms and course of primary tuberculosis in children and adolescents

Abstract

CT is currently a basic and priority method in X-ray diagnosis of primary tuberculosis. To analyze the CT-based semiotics of primary tuberculosis, we studied X-ray data of children and adolescents who had tuberculosis of intrathoracic lymph nodes or various stages of primary tuberculosis complex, treated in “Phthisiatry” Research-Practice Center. The study findings showed that a complicated clinical progression of the primary tuberculosis complex occurred more often in adolescents and infants, and manifested itself as a bronchopulmonary lesion accompanied by a generalization of the process involving other organs and systems. In preschool and junior school age, an unfavorable tuberculosis progression is a rare exclusion and occurs predominantly in the form of a lymphogenous seeding.