Evaluation of Point-of-care Ultrasound in Children From 6 Months to 15 Years With Presumptive Tuberculosis

Diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) in children is particularly challenging in low and middle-income countries (LMIC), and a high number of children remain undiagnosed and untreated. A delay in diagnosis can lead to an increase in preventable morbidity and mortality. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is a bedside, non-invasive, inexpensive imaging tool, and TB-focused POCUS has been used and validated for adults with HIV. This study aims to describe the TB-focused POCUS findings for children with presumptive TB aged between 6 months and 15 years old, and to stratify the results per HIV, nutritional status and age. This is a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) multicentric study which takes place in Guinea Bissau and South Sudan.