2396. Clostridium difficile Infection is Children with Sickle Cell Disease: An Uncommon Entity

Abstract

Abstract Background Children with sickle cell disease (SCD) have numerous risk factors for intestinal dysbiosis, including frequent hospitalization, iron overload, antibiotic exposure including penicillin prophylaxis, hypoxia, and altered gut permeability. Many of these conditions are also established risk factors for C. difficile infection (CDI); however, the incidence of CDI in children with SCD has not been characterized. Methods We performed a 10-year retrospective review from 1/2008–December 2017. Patients who qualified with CDI were either admitted or within 2 weeks of discharge from our site and had a positive test. A positive test was defined as a positive glutamate dehydrogenase 1 test in conjunction with either a positive ELISA or a positive PCR for toxin. Three investigators independently reviewed if patients had active diarrhea during the time of their positivity. Patients excluded were <2 years old and patients undergoing a stem cell transplant (SCT) or irritable bowel disease (IBD) at the time of a positive test. Chi-square test with Yates correction, descriptive statistics were used when comparing groups<./p> Results Over a 10-year period (2008–2017), there were 5666 admissions for children with SCD, corresponding to 25,915 hospitalization days and 957 unique patients. The average age of this cohort at the time of admission was 10.6 ± 6.7 years; 51.7% were male. One patient qualified; a 12-year-old who developed diarrhea and abdominal pain after recent hospitalization for pneumonia (Figure 1). This yielded a CDI incidence of 0.39/10,000 patient-days or 0.18 cases per 1000 admissions (Table 1). There were 208 cases of CDI in non-SCD children, with an incidence of 5.53/10,000 patient-days (P < 0.001) or 2.77 cases per 1000 admissions (P < 0.001) (Table 2) during the study period. In 2015–2017, there were no cases of CDI in 957 SCD patients, of which 218 were on penicillin prophylaxis. Conclusion There is a very low incidence of CDI in children with SCD despite significant antibiotic exposure and other risk factors for intestinal dysbiosis. These findings are consistent with recent studies in adults (N Engl J Med 2019; 380:887–888) and suggest that sickle cell patients are somehow protected against CDI. Additional studies are needed to define the host and biome factors that confer this protection. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.