Radiological findings of pulmonary tuberculosis in adolescents in a teaching hospital, Sangareddy

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) accounts for 1.7 million deaths, according to the recent WHO report. India alone accounts for one fifth (21%) of all the TB cases globally. Objectives: Radiologic findings of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) in adolescents. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional, observational study of 170 patients with TB aged 10 to 19 years. Data were collected from the TB notification and medical records during the period of 2014-2017. Data were shown in tables and analyzed using the chi-square test, with a 5% significance level. Results: Mean age was 15.6 years; 97 (57%) patients were males. The most common radiologic lesion was the upper pulmonary lobe infiltrates (43.33%), and isolated cavitation was found in 20.7% of the patients. Both lungs were affected in 32.2% of the patients. The finding of bilateral radiologic lesions was significantly associated with longer disease duration (p = 0.0005). Conclusion: Pulmonary TB in adolescents has similar characteristics to TB in adults, evidencing the important role played by adolescents to transmit the disease in community.