Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Multicenter Study
Emergency department presentation of children with tuberculosis.
The objectives were to describe emergency department (ED) presentations of children with tuberculosis (TB) disease and assess the utility in children of TB screening tools developed for adults. ⋯ The point of entry to health care for many children with TB is the ED. The more protean manifestations of TB in children can decrease the utility of screening tools developed to identify adults with TB. While TB in adults often is a microbiologic diagnosis, childhood TB often is an epidemiologic diagnosis. Therefore, questioning caregivers about TB risk factors in the family may identify a higher percentage of children with possible TB.