Gastric lavage in the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis in children: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVE To analyze standardization of gastric lavage protocols in the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis in children. METHODS A systematic review was conducted for the period between 1968 and 2008 in the following databases: LILACS, SCIELO and MEDLINE. The search strategy included the following terms: "gastric lavage and tuberculosis" or "gastric washing and tuberculosis" with the restriction of "children aged up to 15 years;" "gastric lavage and tuberculosis and childhood" or "gastric washing and tuberculosis and childhood." There were retrieved 80 articles and their analysis was based on information on the gastric lavage protocol for the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis in children: preparation of children and fasting; time of gastric aspiration; aspiration of gastric residues; total volume of aspirate; solution used for aspiration of gastric contents; decontaminant solution; buffer solution; and time for forwarding samples to the laboratory. After a thorough analysis, 14 articles were selected. RESULTS No article detailed the whole procedure. Some articles had missing information on: amount of gastric aspirate; aspiration before or after solution injection; solution used for gastric aspiration; buffer solution used; and waiting time between specimen collection and laboratory processing. These results showed inconsistencies of gastric lavage protocols. CONCLUSIONS Although gastric lavage is a secondary diagnostic approach used only in special cases that did not reach the diagnostic scoring as recommended by the Brazilian Ministry of Health, there is a need to standardize gastric lavage protocols for the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis in children.