Detection of community‐acquired respiratory viruses in allogeneic stem‐cell transplant recipients and controls—A prospective cohort study

Background Community‐acquired respiratory viruses (CARV) cause upper and lower respiratory tract infections (URTI/LRTI) and may be life‐threatening for recipients of an allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo‐SCT). Methods In a prospective study encompassing 4 winter‐seasons, we collected throat gargles (TG) at random time points from allo‐SCT recipients (patients) and controls and followed them up for at least 3 weeks including repetitive sampling and documentation of symptoms. A Multiplex‐PCR system to identify 20 CARV and Mycoplasma pneumoniae was used to detect CARV. Results One hundred ninety‐four patients with 426 TG and 273 controls with 549 TG were included. There were more patients with a positive test result (25% vs 11% in the controls), and the patients had a higher number of positive TG (70 = 16%) compared to controls (32 = 6%) (P 40 years (OR 3.38, 95% CI 1.8‐6.4, P