Pediatric patients who receive solid organ transplants are hospitalized due to vaccine-preventable infections at significantly higher rates than the general population, a study published in JAMA Pediatrics found.
The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora. They reviewed 6,980 U.S. transplant recipients over a seven-year period beginning Jan. 1, 2004, to identify how often they are hospitalized with infections that can typically be prevented with vaccines.
Of the transplant recipients in the study, 1,092 patients (15.6 percent) were hospitalized with 1,490 cases of vaccine-preventable infections within five years after transplant surgery.
At that rate, hospitalization among this population was up to 87 times higher than in the general population, the researchers found.
"The huge burden of illness from vaccine-preventable infections that we show in this article should stress to all physicians the critical importance of ensuring that all transplant patients receive age-appropriate immunizations," said lead study author, Amy Feldman, MD.
The researchers recommend further study to find ways to improve the likelihood of vaccination among children who require transplant surgery.