Palivizumab for prophylaxis against respiratory syncytial virus infection in children with cystic fibrosis

Spectrum of viral infections in patients with cystic fibrosis

“…Prophylaxis with palivizumab lowers the hospitalization rate for RSV infection in adult populations at risk of severe infection. There are studies giving hint that CF infants may benefit from RSV prophylaxis with palivizumab as well [52,53], whereas other authors reported no clinically meaningful differences in outcomes between the palivizumab and placebo groups [54]. It seems that the severity of pre-existing medical disorders makes the patients generally more susceptible to respiratory infections and RSV prophylaxis with palivizumab may modulate the degree of illness [55].…”

Intranasal immunization with W805EC adjuvanted recombinant RSV rF-ptn enhances clearance of respiratory syncytial virus in a mouse model

“…F protein has been shown to confer Th-1-associated protective immunity against RSV and has been the preferred target for RSV vaccine development 14 , 15 . Furthermore, passive immunization with monoclonal antibodies with specificity for RSV F protein (palivizumab and motavizumab) has been shown to protect high-risk infants from severe RSV disease 16 , 17 . RSV F protein subunit vaccines are delivered parenterally and have been clinically well-tolerated and capable of eliciting potentially protective levels of neutralizing antibodies in humans 18 - 21 .…”

Use of palivizumab in infants and young children with severe respiratory disease: A delphi study

“…35 According to Winterstein et al 36 , RSV hospitalization incidence for RSV infection in CF patients seems to be low and, though unadjusted and adjusted RSVhospitalization incidence rates suggested potentially positive effects of palivizumab, results are inconclusive due to small event rates. On the other hand, according to Robinson et al 37 , it is not possible to draw conclusions on the safety and tolerability of RSV prophylaxis with palivizumab in infants with cystic fibrosis because no good trials have been done to access this point, but it seems that in CF patients the overall incidence of adverse events is similar to other groups. On a similar way, there is currently no evidence from randomized studies that influenza vaccine given to patients with cystic fibrosis is of benefit to them.…”