Abstract
Asplenic and hyposplenic patients have an increased risk for overwhelming pneumococcal infections, even several decades after splenectomy. Pneumococcal vaccination and daily oral administration of penicillin V are recommended to prevent such infections, 2–5 years after splenectomy, and for at least 5 years in children affected with sickle cell disease. In order to assess whether the infectious risk is actually known and prevented, we interviewed physicians (belonging to a general practitioner and pediatrician network) who followed patients having undergone a splenectomy and/or children with sickle cell disease under 5 years of age. We received replies from 104 physicians monitoring 152 patients replied. Potential infection risk was not known for 28% of the asplenic patients and 40% of the children with sickle cell disease. Only 75% of the asplenic patients and 36% of the children with sickle cell disease had been vaccinated against pneumococcus. Of the patients who had undergone splenectomy, 27% had been treated with an antibiotic after surgery and 60% had discontinued it, the vast majority of them during the same year. Of the children with sickle cell disease, 48% were not receiving an antibiotic. This study demonstrates that risk of infections in asplenic patients is widely misunderstood, indicating the urgent need to improve their management.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Sumaraju V, Smith LG, Smith SM (2001) Infectious complications in asplenic hosts. Infect Dis Clin North Am 15:551–565
Hermine O (1997) Splenectomy. In: Varet (ed) Le livre de l’interne. Médecine-Sciences Flammarion, Paris, pp 289–294
Holdsworth RJ, Irving AD, Cuschieri A (1991) Postsplenectomy sepsis and mortality rate: actual versus perceived risk. Br J Surg 78:1031–1038
Gill FM, Sleeper LA, Weiner SJ, Brown AK, Bellevue R, Grover R, Pegelow CH, Vichinsky E, for the Cooperative Study Group of Sickle Cell Disease (1995) Clinical events in the first decade in a cohort of infants with sickle cell disease. Blood 86:776–783
Thomas C, Lemerle S, Bernaudin F, Feingold J, Guilloud-Bataille M, Reinert P (1996) Drépanocytose: étude de la mortalité pédiatrique en Ile de France de 1985 à 1992. Arch Pediatr 3:445–451
Gaston MH, Verter JI, Woods G, Pegelow C, Kelleher J, Presbury G, Zarkowsky H, Vichinsky E, Iyer R, Lobel JS, Diamond S, Holbrook T, Gill FM, Ritchey K, Falletta JM for the Prophylactic Penicillin Study Group (1986) Prophylaxis with oral penicillin in children with sickle cell anemia. N Engl J Med 314:1593–1599
Comité des maladies infectieuses et d’immunisation. Société canadienne de pédiatrie (1999) La prévention et le traitement des infections bactériennes chez les enfants aspléniques ou hypospléniques. Paediatr Child Health 4:427–431
Schilling RF(1995) Estimating the risk for sepsis after splenectomy in hereditary spherocytosis. Ann Intern Med 122:187–188
Pass KA, Harris K, Lorey F, Choi R, Kling MA (2000) Update: newborn screening for sickle cell disease—California, Illinois, and New York, 1998. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 49:729–731
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
de Montalembert, M., Lenoir, G. Antibiotic prevention of pneumococcal infections in asplenic hosts: admission of insufficiency. Ann Hematol 83, 18–21 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00277-003-0779-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00277-003-0779-x