Recent Innovations in Diagnosis and Treatment of Pediatric Tuberculosis

AbstractPurpose of ReviewTuberculosis is leading cause of global morbidity and mortality and a significant proportion of the burden of disease occurs in children. In the past 5  years, a number of innovations have improved the diagnosis and treatment for children with both latent tuberculosis infection and active disease.Recent FindingsThis review discusses three key areas of innovation. First, we assess utilization and performance of interferon-gamma release assays (IGRAs) in different clinical and epidemiologic scenarios. Recent literature has demonstrated good performance of IGRAs for diagnosis of latent tuberculosis infection, particularly in low-incidence settings such as TB control programs in North America. For high-incidence populations, or when testing is done for possible active TB disease, IGRA performance has some important limitations, but IGRA sensitivity when measured against culture proven disease may be better than earlier studies suggested. The second area of innovation is in increased uptake of nucleic acid amplification (NAA) tests and broader application in non-sputum samples for both pediatric pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis. Finally, recent studies have provided solid evidence in support of shorter treatment courses for pediatric latent tuberculosis infection, such as 12  weeks of weekly isoniazid and rifapentine or 4 months daily rifampin, that improve compliance and may reduce resources required for TB control.SummaryMany recent innovatio...
Source: Current Infectious Disease Reports - Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: research