2) It is essential to obtain bacteriological confirmation from extrapulmonary sites in order to confirm diagnosis and consequently provide optimal and effective treatment; this may include the more sensitive molecular test [ 4].
Bacterial pneumonia considered for this analysis were classified into two categories: (1) "confirmed" (clinical and specific radiological signs together with a bacteriological confirmation) or (2) "probable" (clinical and specific radiological signs together with a successful antibacterial treatment).
Swab specimens and small bone chips were taken for bacteriological confirmation of the infection.
As imaging pattern is largely non-specific, a histopathological or bacteriological confirmation is often required.
The measure of effectiveness was treatment completion rate, since not all patients completing treatment have a bacteriological confirmation of cure.
The World Health Organization has recently issued new guidelines for the diagnosis of TB in children and emphasized the importance of the bacteriological confirmation of diagnosis [3].
However, TB control during the nineties in Russia did not follow this policy; treatment was not standardized, mass population screening and diagnosis of TB was performed predominately through chest radiography and was often not complemented by bacteriological confirmation.
The primary outcome measure was bacteriological confirmation of infection (SBI) and the secondary outcome measure was death/survival in hospital, Afebrile children, without malaria parasitaemia, from the same villages as the cases, were used as controls.
Bacteriological confirmation of TB was performed by detection of acid fast bacilli (AFB) at the local TB control program's laboratories and confirmed by the research team's Microbiology laboratory at Corporación para Investigaciones Biológicas (CIB) by sputum microscopy and culture.
Bacteriological confirmation of M. tuberculosis in children may be possible in fewer than 40% of suspect cases, yet it remains the gold standard in the majority of diagnostic approaches [1].
