Respiratory syncytial virus pneumonia in hospitalized adult patients with leukemia. Clin. Infect. Dis

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) has been demonstrated to be an important cause of life-threaten-ing pneumonia in adult bone marrow transplant recipients; however, its role in other immunocom-promised adults has not been defined. We prospectively studied all adult patients with leukemia who were hospitalized at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (Houston) during a I-year period (Novem-ber 1993 through October 1994). During a 19-week period when RSV was prevalent in the commu-nity, it was isolated from 9 (10%) of 87 patients with leukemia who developed an acute respiratory illness. In 6 (75%) of 8 patients with profound chemotherapy-induced myelosuppression, the RSV infection was complicated by pneumonia, with an 83 % mortality rate. RSV appears to be an important cause of severe and often fatal pneumonia in myelosuppressed patients with leukemia. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most important cause of serious lower respiratory tract disease in young chil-dren; however, it rarely causes more than a self-limited upper respiratory tract infection in immunocompetent adults. Al-though RSV has recently been demonstrated to cause devastat-ing outbreaks of life-threatening pneumonia among adult bon