As per the latest fact sheet of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tuberculosis (TB), a communicable disease of the lung caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis), affected 1.2 million children in 2021. The data also provides evidence regarding the organization’s continuous measures to support efforts towards managing TB and recognizes the importance of TB research.
A recent investigation by researchers from Boston University, US, Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa, University of Cape Town, South Africa, and University of Western Australia, Australia, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, brought to light the fact that post-TB illness is not well characterized in children. In this study, they also reveal that the effect of pulmonary (of the lung) tuberculosis (PTB) diagnosis on lung function, wheezing, and anthropometric measurements (noninvasive quantitative measurements of the body), in children.
Overall, the study’s results act as an evidence for an increased risk of poor lung function, wheezing episodes, as well as a reduction in height and weight in PTB-diagnosed children.
The team followed up with a population of over 1000 children aged between 0-9 years from two different communities in Cape Town, South Africa, during March 2012-March 2015, and discovered that PTB-diagnosed children had a greater risk of experiencing post-TB wheezing, regardless of the when the infection was developed. They also found PTB-diagnosed children who were less than six months old, had greater than double risk of developing wheezing after six months when compared to children without PTB. Another interesting finding was that the risk of developing wheezing increased in PTB-diagnosed children who were under 3 years of age.
Overall, the study’s results act as an evidence for an increased risk of poor lung function, wheezing episodes, as well as a reduction in height and weight in PTB-diagnosed children.
The team followed up with a population of over 1000 children aged between 0-9 years from two different communities in Cape Town, South Africa, during March 2012-March 2015, and discovered that PTB-diagnosed children had a greater risk of experiencing post-TB wheezing, regardless of when the infection had developed. They also found PTB-diagnosed children who were less than six months old, had a greater than double risk of developing wheezing after six months when compared to children without PTB. Another interesting finding was that the risk of developing wheezing increased in PTB-diagnosed children who were under 3 years of age.
Along with this, the team’s research revealed that once PTB developed, it paved the way for lung function impairments that can last for years together, despite appropriate treatment and even after the recovery from the infection and illness.
In addition, their results suggest that targeted treatment and management of post-TB issues can benefit the enormous and increasing population of TB survivors all over the world. The authors also believe that the results of their study allows room for the treatment and early diagnosis of PTB as well as preventive care for children, as this can greatly benefit children later in their lives.
Furthermore, they highlight the limitations to their study. The first limitation explained by the authors is that of the study’s relevance. They think their study’s findings might be less relevant to populations where the TB prevalence is low. The second limitation is that they have excluded environmental carbon fuel and air pollution data. The third limitation is that their confirmation of TB through microbiological approaches could be biased as they were underpowered.
Nevertheless, the strengths of the research lies in the fact that they performed long-term follow-up with most of the initial population included in the study, repeated health and lung function measurements, and patient data collection before TB-diagnosis.
