Radiologic findings of pulmonary tuberculosis in adolescents

OBJECTIVE: To describe radiologic findings of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) in adolescents. METHODS: Retrospective, cross-sectional, observational study of 850 patients with TB, aged 10 to 19 years, and notified to the Brazilian Ministry of Health. Data were collected from the TB notification and medical records in the cities of Manaus, Amazonas State, and Salvador, Bahia State, in the 19962003 period. Data are shown in tables and analyzed using the chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests, with a 5% significance level. RESULTS: Mean age was 15.6 years; 443 (52.1%) patients were males. The most common radiologic lesion was the upper pulmonary lobe infiltrate (53.3%), and isolated cavitation was found in 32.4% of the patients. Both lungs were affected in 29.2% of the patients. The finding of bilateral radiologic lesions was significantly associated with longer disease duration (p = 0.0005). CONCLUSIONS: Pulmonary TB in adolescents has similar characteristics to TB in adults, evidencing the important role played by adolescents in community disease transmission.