Abstract

Hematopoetic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is one of the most aggressive treatments for a variety of hematologic malignancies, blood disorders and rare genetic disorders. Infections in HSCT are amongst the major causes of morbidity and mortality in the post-transplant period.
Objectives: To study the characteristics of infectious complications and outcomes in patients after Allogeneic HSCT for thalassemia in a tertiary care centre.
Materials &Methods: This is an ambispective study and all children who underwent HSCT for thalassemia and had infection from 1st January 2017 to 31st July 2022 were included in the study.
Results:  Majority of the patients were males (n=65, 68.4%). Of the total 95 recipients, 40 recipients (42.10%) had documented infections after the transplant.19 recipients had bacterial infection, so the bacterial infections account for 47.5% of total infections. Of them gram-negative bacilli infection was present in 10 (52.63%), gram positive cocci infection was encountered in 9patients (47.37%). Total 18 recipients had viral infection; viral infections account for 45% of total infections. majority of them had Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection (n=12, 66.67%), 4 had BK virus infection (22.22%), 1 recipient (5.56%) each had Varicella zoster virus (VZV) and Parvo-virus B19 infection. Three patients (7.5%) were infected by fungal infection.
Of the 40 patients with infection 14 patients died.
Conclusion:  Judicious clinical work up, strict asepsis measures and early diagnosis and intervention remain the key to good clinical outcome.