Vaccine-preventable infections common after peds transplant

(HealthDay)—Hospitalization for vaccine-preventable infections occurs in more than 15 percent of pediatric solid organ transplant recipients in the first five years after surgery, according to a study recently published in JAMA Pediatrics.

Amy G. Feldman, M.D., from Children's Hospital Colorado in Denver, and colleagues used data from the Pediatric Health Information System to assess hospitalizations for vaccine-preventable infections among 6,980 patients (mean age at transplant, 8 years) in the first five years after pediatric solid organ transplant.

The researchers found a total of 1,490 cases of vaccine-preventable infections among 1,092 patients (15.6 percent). Of these cases, 13.1 percent occurred during transplant hospitalization. Transplant hospitalizations complicated by vaccine-preventable infections were $120,498 more expensive than those not complicated by vaccine-preventable infections. For all infections, the case fatality rate was 1.7 percent. Increased risk for hospitalization from a vaccine-preventable infection was positively associated with age <2 years at time of transplant as well as receipt of a lung, heart, intestine, or multivisceral organ.

"There was significant morbidity, mortality, and costs from these infections, demonstrating the importance of immunizing all transplant candidates and recipients," the authors write.