Even on-time pneumococcal vaccines don’t completely protect children with asthma from developing invasive pneumococcal disease, a meta-analysis has determined.
Despite receiving pneumococcal valent 7, 10, or 13, children with asthma were still almost twice as likely to develop the disease as were children without asthma, Jose A. Castro-Rodriguez, MD, PhD, and colleagues reported in Pediatrics (2020 Jan. ). None of the studies included rates for those who received the pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23).
“For the first time, this meta-analysis reveals 90% increased odds of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) among [vaccinated] children with asthma,” said Dr. Castro-Rodriguez, of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, and colleagues. “If confirmed, these findings will bear clinical and public health importance,” they noted, because guidelines now recommend PPSV23 after age 2 in children with asthma only if they’re treated with prolonged high-dose oral corticosteroids.
However, because the analysis comprised only four studies, the authors cautioned that the results aren’t enough to justify changes to practice recommendations.
Asthma treatment with inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) may be driving the increased risk, Dr. Castro-Rodriguez and his coauthors suggested. ICS deposition in the oropharynx could boost oropharyngeal candidiasis risk by weakening the mucosal immune response, the researchers noted. And that same process may be at work with Streptococcus pneumoniae.
A prior study found that children with asthma who received ICS for at least 1 month were almost four times more likely to have oropharyngeal colonization by S. pneumoniae as were those who didn’t get the drugs. Thus, a higher carrier rate of S. pneumoniae in the oropharynx, along with asthma’s impaired airway clearance, might increase the risk of pneumococcal diseases, the investigators explained.
Dr. Castro-Rodriguez and colleagues analyzed four studies with more than 4,000 cases and controls, and about 26 million person-years of follow-up.
Rates and risks of IPD in the four studies were as follows:
- Among those with IPD, 27% had asthma, with 18% of those without, an adjusted odds ratio (aOR) of 1.8.
- In a European of patients who received at least 3 doses of PCV7, IPD rates per 100,000 person-years for 5-year-olds were 11.6 for children with asthma and 7.3 for those without. For 5- to 17-year-olds with and without asthma, the rates were 2.3 and 1.6, respectively.
- In 2001, a Korean found an aOR of 2.08 for IPD in children with asthma, compared with those without. In 2010, the aOR was 3.26. No vaccine types were reported in the study.
- of IPD were 3.7 per 100,000 person-years for children with asthma, compared with 2.5 for healthy controls – an adjusted relative risk of 1.5.
The pooled estimate of the four studies revealed an aOR of 1.9 for IPD among children with asthma, compared with those without, Dr. Castro-Rodriguez and his team concluded.
None of the studies reported hospital admissions, mortality, length of hospital stay, intensive care admission, invasive respiratory support, or additional medication use.
One, however, did find asthma severity was significantly associated with increasing IPD treatment costs per 100,000 person-years: $72,581 for healthy controls, compared with $100,020 for children with mild asthma, $172,002 for moderate asthma, and $638,452 for severe asthma.
In addition, treating all-cause pneumonia was more expensive in children with asthma. For all-cause pneumonia, the researchers found that estimated costs per 100,000 person-years for mild, moderate, and severe asthma were $7.5 million, $14.6 million, and $46.8 million, respectively, compared with $1.7 million for healthy controls.
The authors had no relevant financial disclosures.
SOURCE: Castro-Rodriguez J et al. Pediatrics. 2020 Jan. doi: 10.1542/peds.2019-1200.