Understanding Pediatric Tuberculosis: Current Challenges and Future Directions

Tuberculosis (TB) in children remains a significant yet often under-recognized public health challenge. Despite global progress in TB prevention and control, childhood TB persists as a major concern due to its complex natural history, varied clinical presentations, and frequent diagnostic difficulties. Growing awareness of pediatric TB as an emerging epidemic raises critical questions about burden estimates, gaps in detection, risk factors specific to younger populations, and health system capacity.

The spectrum of pediatric TB differs substantially from adult disease. Risk factors unique to or amplified in children shape disease course and outcomes in ways that demand dedicated attention. Novel diagnostic technologies have improved case detection, yet substantial limitations persist. Beyond diagnosis, clinical management requires ongoing evaluation, particularly around shorter treatment regimens and drug-resistant TB (DR-TB), where evidence remains limited and access uneven. Prevention through BCG vaccination, chemoprophylaxis, and emerging vaccine candidates remains a key frontier, as do the long-term sequelae experienced by children following TB disease.

This Research Topic aims to consolidate the latest research, critical reviews, and expert perspectives on tuberculosis in children, organised around key thematic areas: epidemiology and burden, clinical presentation, diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and long-term outcomes. Contributions should offer evidence-based insights, appraise current controversies, and propose strategies to enhance detection, prevention, and management of pediatric TB worldwide.

We welcome submissions across the following thematic areas:

- Epidemiology & Burden: Contributions addressing trends in the incidence and burden of TB in children, the natural history of pediatric TB, and the role of key risk factors - including malnutrition, HIV co-infection, and household contact exposure - on disease progression and patient outcomes.

- Clinical Presentation: Work examining the clinical spectrum of pediatric TB across its pulmonary and extra-pulmonary manifestations, including the challenges of recognition and case identification in routine care settings.

- Diagnosis: Studies evaluating diagnostic approaches in children - from novel point-of-care tools and biomarkers to imaging technologies and clinical decision algorithms - with attention to performance metrics and their implications for burden estimation.

- Ethical considerations in TB diagnostic research involving children are also welcome.

- Treatment: Research on the clinical management of TB in children, including the evaluation of shortened treatment regimens, approaches to drug-resistant TB, and the adaptability of current protocols to diverse resource settings.

- Prevention: Investigations into preventive strategies across the spectrum, from BCG vaccination and chemoprophylaxis to emerging vaccine candidates, with a focus on efficacy, equity, and implementation.

- Long-term Outcomes & TB Control: Studies on post-TB sequelae, long-term health impacts in children, and the broader contribution of addressing pediatric TB to global TB control and eradication efforts.

If you are interested in submitting or have any questions, please contact the journal email: tuberculosis@frontiersin.org.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review

Keywords: Pediatric tuberculosis, childhood TB, TB diagnostics, TB epidemiology, BCG vaccination, TB prevention, clinical management, TB eradication

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.