Frequent Respiratory Viral Infections in Children with Febrile Neutropenia - A Prospective Follow-Up Study

Söderman, Martina; Rhedin, Samuel; Tolfvenstam, Thomas; Rotzén-Östlund, Maria; Albert, Jan; Broliden, Kristina; Lindblom, Anna

When comparing episodes involving only respiratory viral infection (i.e., infection with either a single respiratory virus or multiple respiratory viruses) with episodes involving only septicemia or fever of unknown origin, no statistically significant differences were observed with respect to age, gender, days with fever, or maximum temperature (Table 1) . However, the presence of respiratory symptoms was significantly higher in the episodes involving only respiratory viral infection (86%) compared with both the episodes involving only septicemia (40%) and fever of unknown origin (58%) (p = 0.043 and p = 0.007, respectively). The episodes with only respiratory viral infection were also more often treated for a hematological malignancy (58%) compared to the fever of unknown origin episodes (35%) (p = 0.04 (Table 4) . A new respiratory virus was detected in six follow-up samples: Flu A (n = 2), RV (n = 2), HCoV (n = 1), and RSV (n = 1). Of these six, the episodes for all except one involving RV exhibited respiratory symptoms, and one (Flu) represented a new episode of febrile neutropenia.