Giovanni Gilberta, Virly Isella, Jerrel Francie
OBJECTIVE : Pediatric tuberculosis is one of the health issue in Indonesia. Different with adult, diagnosis of pediatric tuberculosis is challenging due to lack of pathogmonic findings and unspecific symptoms. Diagnosis of pediatric tuberculosis is made based on clinical findings and supporting examination. Tuberculin skin test (TST) or mantoux is one of the test used to support child tuberculosis diagnosis. This research aims to describe the clinical symptoms found in children with tuberculosis infection, shown by positive TST test. METHOD: Descriptive study was conducted through children’s medical record, who underwent TST and attain the age of 0-14 year old, at Puskesmas Kecamatan Penjaringan during January-December 2018. RESULT: From 84 children who were tested, 17 children had positive TST, mostly 5-less than 10 years old. Tuberculin index in this study is 17 out of 84 children (20.2%). Majority of the children with positive TST, 9 from 17 children (52.9%), showed loss of apetite in clinical symptoms. Difficulty of gaining weight or weight loss complaint were found in 6 children (35.3%), enlargement of lymph node and fever each were found in 5 children (29.4%). Cough were the least symptoms found in this study, only discovered in 3 children (17.6%). Contact with tuberculosis patients were reported in 76.5% by the parents, supporting the clinical symptoms reported. CONCLUSION: Pediatric tuberculosis infection showed variety of clinical symptoms, due to lack of pathogmonic findings. Loss of apetite, lymph node enlargement, weight gain problem, more than 3 weeks cough, and fever, were found in children with positive TST. Tuberculosis infection should be suspected in children with those symptoms, especially when tuberculosis contact was recorded or reported.