Necrotizing pneumonia refers to the development of necrosis, liquefication, and cavitation of the lung parenchyma from an infectious pathogen. Nearly 4% of all community-acquired pneumonias are necrotizing, although studies retrospectively evaluating the incidence have found it to be increasing during the past 20 years. Common presenting symptoms include fever, tachypnea, and cough, and most of those afflicted also develop complications such as parapneumonic effusions, empyemas, or bronchopleural fistulae. When compared to age-matched controls with parapneumonic effusions or severe pneumonias without a necrotizing component, those with necrotizing pneumonia have been shown to have more elevated white blood cell counts and inflammatory markers that take longer to normalize, a longer duration of symptoms despite initiation of therapy, and a longer hospital stay. Despite the high incidence of complications during the acute phase of illness, the overall prognosis of necrotizing pneumonia has been shown to be promising, with nearly all children surviving the illness. [Pediatr Ann. 2017;46(2):e65-e68.].

Outcomes for patients with high-risk neuroblastoma (HR-NBL) are significantly improved with the addition of immunotherapy (dinutuximab + cytokines) following autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (auto-HSCT). We hypothesized that the immune system is not fully reconstituted at the initiation of immunotherapy. To test this hypothesis, we evaluated hematologic and immune subsets in 34 patients with HR-NBL before and after auto-HSCT. We found that absolute T, B, and NK cell counts at the time of immunotherapy were below normal in 80% of patients. Patients with residual disease at the time of transplantation had significantly lower absolute lymphocyte counts (ALC; P = .008), lower CD16 cell counts (P = .009), and an abnormal ratio of cytokine-releasing to cytotoxic NK cells at the time of dinutuximab treatment. In addition, the preparative regimen used for auto-HSCT predicted immune recovery. Finally, higher total white blood cell count (P = .013) and ALC (P = .013) at 3 months after completion of therapy were measured in patients who remained in remission compared with those who relapsed. Our results indicate that most patients with HR-NBL do not have full immune reconstitution at the time of dinutuximab treatment after auto-HSCT, and that immune recovery may correlate with disease-related outcomes in patients with high-risk disease.

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