Even Mildly Premature Infants at Risk for Severe RSV Infection

According to a research report presented earlier this month at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2009 Annual Meeting in Baltimore, even mild prematurity increases the risk for severe RSV infection in infants. The team, from Kaiser Permanente's Division of Perinatal Research in California, conducted a retrospective study of over 100,000 infants with gestational age of at least 33 weeks. They found that even babies who were born nearly full-term (at 37 weeks) were at significantly increased risk for serious respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections that require medical attention, including hospitalization in some cases. While the team does not determine why even mildly premature infants born just two to three weeks early have such a high risk of RSV infection associated with morbidity. Placing mildly premature infants in an even more precarious position is the fact that RSV prevention with the drug pavlizumab is approved only for the extremely premature baby. For Medscape's coverage of this research and a Canadian registry under development to better understand the use of pavlizumab with preemies, click here. (Free registration is required to view this link.)