Protective effect of Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination in children with extra-pulmonary tuberculosis, but not the pulmonary disease. A case-control study in Rosario, Argentina

BONIFACHICH ELENA,; CHORT MÓNICA,; ASTIGARRAGA ANA,; DÍAZ NORA,; BRUNET BEATRIZ,; PEZZOTTO STELLA,; BOTTASSO O; BOTTASSO OSCAR

VACCINE

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

Lugar: Elsevier; Año: 2006 vol. 24 p. 2894 - 2899

0264-410X

A hospital-based case control studywas carried out at the Vilela Children´s Hospital in Rosario, Argentina,to measure the protection conferred by BCG vaccination against tuberculosis(TB). The study included 148 newly diagnosed cases of TB (75 males and 73females, mean age 3.34 ± 2.97 years, SD), 134 of them with pulmonary TB and 14cases with extra-pulmonary disease. Controls (425 males and 357 females, 3.39 ±2.98 years) were selected randomly among children who attended to the Hospital showing,neither respiratory diseases nor any other infectious illnesses. Information onBCG vaccination history was assessed from scars or immunisation records. Allparticipants were negative to human immunodeficiency virus and belonged to thelower and upper-lower socioeconomic status, being similar in place of residenceand ethnic characteristics. Rate of vaccinated children was 92.6% of cases and94.5% of controls (3.4% and 3.9% of them without scars, respectively). Regardingthe total cases, the protective association between BCG and TB wasstatistically insignificant, as was for the pulmonary form. Among cases withextra-pulmonary disease, vaccine effectiveness attained significance [79 % (95%CI = 26 ? 94)], no mattertheir age, sex or nutritional status. BCGvaccination exerted a beneficial role in extra-pulmonary TB, even in childrennot seriously undernourished.