Congenital tuberculosis: Late manifestation of the maternal infection

Abstract

Tuberculosis in pregnancy though not uncommon, congenital tuberculosis continues to be a rare entity. A case of congenital tuberculosis where the mother manifested the disease 3 months after it was diagnosed in the newborn is reported considering its rarity.

Fatal congenital tuberculosis due to a Beijing strain in a premature neonate

“…China, India, Africa and Latin America have the highest overall TB infection rates (Pal & Ghosh, 2008;Patel & DeSantis, 2008). Most of the literature consists of individual case reports, case series and reviews (Pal & Ghosh, 2008;Cantwell et al, 1994;Stähelin-Massik et al, 2002;Berk & Sylvester, 2004;Chang et al, 2005). The mortality rate is very high, nearly 50 %, which is often due to delayed diagnosis (Patel & DeSantis, 2008).…”

Analysis of 170 cases of congenital TB reported in the literature between 1946 and 2009

“…Based on the Cantwell's criteria, six patients were diagnosed with congenital tuberculosis in the Children's Hospital of Chongqing Medical University from 1994 to 2009, and another 164 cases were reported in different literatures 1, 3, 5–119. In this study, we focused on summarizing the laboratory findings and other factors associated with prognosis of congenital tuberculosis.…”

Congenital tuberculosis: a case series

“…All the babies in our series received steroids with rapid diminution in respiratory support requirement. Since neonatal TB is akin to miliary TB, possibly it should be considered in select cases depending on the physician's discretion 10 . In all 3 cases presenting as sepsis / pneumonia, non-response to broad spectrum antibiotics, strong clinical suspicion and early initiation of ATDs helped us save lives.…”