RESUMO
A clinical experience of tuberculosis (TB) in 104 pediatric patients observed at the Hospital Regional de Valdivia (southern Chile), along a sixteen year period (1986 - 2001) is presented. Pulmonary TB was diagnosed in 88 cases, extrapulmonary TB in 19 cases and both localizations in three cases. Pulmonary TB was bacteriologically confirmed in 62.5% of cases, through either gastric aspirate or sputum samples. Gastric aspirate yielded 42.8% of positive cultures; two infants who presented central nervous system involvement, died. A case of congenital TB was observed in a 30 day old infant. There were no cases of AIDS in this experience. Pediatric TB has progressively decreased its incidence in our region, particularly the extrapulmonary localization, but still represents a challenging disease to clinicians.