Infectious complications in the paediatric immunocompromised host: a narrative review

Infections are a major cause of morbidity in children with primary or secondary immunodeficiency, and have a negative impact on overall outcome.

This narrative review presents select paediatric-specific aspects regarding the clinical impact, diagnosis, management, and follow-up of infectious complications in patients with primary and secondary immunodeficiencies.

PubMed until January 2024 and searched references in identified articles including the search terms: infection, immunodeficiency or cancer, diagnostics, antimicrobial agents, bacteria or fungus or virus, and follow-up.

Major advances have been made in the early detection and management of patients with primary immunodeficiency, and multiple analyses report in children with cancer on risk groups and periods of risk for infectious complications. Although many diagnostic tools are comparable between children and adults, specific considerations have to be applied, such as minimizing the use of radiation. Antimicrobial drug development remains a major challenge in the paediatric setting, which includes the establishment of appropriate dosing and paediatric approval. Last, long-term follow-up and the impact of late effects are extremely important to be considered in the management of immunocompromised paediatric patients.

Although infectious disease supportive care of immunocompromised children and adolescents has considerably improved over the last three decades, close international collaboration is needed to target the specific challenges in this special population.