Recurrent pneumonia as warning manifestation for suspecting primary immunodeficiencies in children

Two hundred and eight children with recurrent pneumonia were studied over a 5-year period. Among these patients we found 10 cases with primary immunodeficiency disease: 6 cases of IgA deficiency, 1 case of X-linked agammaglobulinemia, 1 case of common variable immunodeficiency, 1 case of hyper IgM syndrome, and 1 case of Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome. This study describes the clinical features of these cases and assesses the usefulness of our immunodeficiency screening protocol. In this group 6 were males; the mean age at first episode of pneumonia was 3 years (range 3 months to 18 years), and the age of diagnosis ranged between 10 months and 19 years. The average number of episodes of pneumonia in each patient was 5 (range 2 to 12), and the number of hospitalizations ranged up to 13. The etiologic agents isolated from this recurrent pneumonia were S. pneumoniae, Moraxella, adenovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, and influenza B virus. Intravenous immunoglobulin was used in four cases. Two patients had chronic pulmonary damage with bronchiectasis and interstitial pneumonia. Only one patient died (Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome) during the follow-up from an intracranial hemorrhage. We found that the screening protocol applied to patients with recurrent pneumonia is a useful tool for ruling out the primary immunodeficiency disorders.