Specificity and sensitivity of chest radiographs in the diagnosis of paediatric pulmonary tuberculosis and the value of additional high-kilovolt radiographs.

Tuberculosis (TB) remains the most common notifiable infectious disease in South Africa. The diagnosis of pulmonary TB in children is often very difficult because of the non-specific radiological signs and inter-observer variation in the interpretation of radiographs. The frontal high-kilovolt (kV) radiograph has been used to assess the effect of TB adenopathy on the tracheobronchial tree and to detect endobronchial lesions.