RSV worse in kids with neuromuscular problems

Children hospitalized with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection are prone to fare poorly if they also have neuromuscular impairments, German and US researchers report.

Many children are infected with RSV in the first couple of years of life, and sometimes they need to be admitted to the hospital if they get into breathing difficulties as a result.

However, "Our matched-pairs study confirmed the clinical experience that children with clinically relevant neuromuscular impairment face a significantly increased risk of a complicated course of RSV infection," Dr. Arne Simon told Reuters Health.

Simon, at the University of Bonn, and colleagues studied RSV infections in 1541 pediatric patients in 14 German hospitals over a 6-year period. The findings are published in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.

Of these patients, 73 (4.7 percent) had neuromuscular impairment, including such conditions as cerebral palsy, spinal tumors, epilepsy, and chromosomal abnormalities. Among this group, 41 children (56 percent) had at least one additional risk factor for a severe course, such as congenital heart disease or chronic lung disease.

The children with neuromuscular impairment suffered a greater rate of seizures than the other children (15.1 percent versus 1.6 percent), and more of them needed mechanical ventilation (9.6 percent versus 1.9 percent).

In addition, the mortality rate was significantly higher in the neuromuscular impairment group (5.5 percent versus 0.2 percent).

The investigators suggest that these high-risk children should be considered for treatment with palivizumab, an antibody preparation that fights the infection.

source : news.yahoo.com