Recent advances in the diagnosis and treatment of childhood tuberculosis

Abstract:

Tuberculosis (TB) is a chronic infectious disease that seriously harms human health and wellbeing. Given its atypical clinical manifestations, TB is hard to be diagnosed in clinical settings; to date no highly sensitive screening approaches are available. Due to the emergence of multidrug-resistant strains of TB (MDR-TB) and limited options for medications in children, the treatment of TB is even more challenging in pediatric patients. This paper aims to comprehensively review the literature on the recent advances in the research on the epidemiology and clinical manifestations of TB, on TB diagnostic approaches (e.g., tuberculin skin test, imaging studies, and laboratory tests), and on TB treatment in children.