Pediatr Allergy Respir Dis.
2007 Mar;17(1):63-67.
A Case of Congenital Tuberculosis in a 3-months Old Infant
- Affiliations
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- 1Department of Pediatrics and Institute of Allergy, College of Medicine Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. kekim@yumc.yonsei.ac.kr
- 2Department of Diagnostic Radiology, College of Medicine Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.
Abstract
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Congenital tuberculosis is a rare disease in which an unborn child inside the uterus or right after delivery is infected with tubercle bacillus, due to the mother suffering primary tuberculosis right before pregnancy or during pregnancy. As a newborn who was naturally delivered with a gestational age of 38 weeks, and 3.02 kg in birth weight, he entered an other hospital with a fever, which he contracted one month after birth, but the fever continued for 10 days, thus he was transferred to this hospital. Chest radiography, indicated infiltration of both lungs, thus he was treated with suspected pneumonia and sepsis. And then, his symptoms became favorable, and he left hospital. However, since chest radiography one month later, his condition had not improved, thus he was hospitalized again. In a computerized chest tomography scan, infiltration of the lungs and tuberculosis were suspected due to a mysterious region of shadow. A tubercle bacillus test was conducted, and the tuberculin test was negative. However, acid- fast bacilli smear, acid-fast bacilli culture test, and polymerase chain reaction test, which were carried out the gastric aspiration were positive. The patient was administered antitubercular agents under the diagnosis of congenital tuberculosis, and he is currently under observation as an outpatient, without complications. The authors experienced a case of congenital tuberculosis, which was discovered due to fever, generated 4 weeks after birth, and to abnormal views in chest radiography, which continued more than 2 months. We report this.