Background
Gastrointestinal complications are becoming increasingly more common and pose a significant risk on the health of children with compromised immunity caused by various etiologies such as chemotherapy and posttransplantation immunosuppression. We aim to review abdominal complications in immunocompromised children and their respective management.
Main body
This is a scoping review of the literature. PubMed, MEDLINE, Google Scholar, and Scopus libraries were searched for relevant articles. Extracted data included the etiologies of immunocompromised immunity, gastrointestinal and abdominal complications in immunocompromised children, diagnosis, and treatment of these pathologies. Examples of gastrointestinal complications in immunocompromised children include, but not limited to, neutropenic enterocolitis, acute appendicitis, bowel perforation, acalculous cholecystitis, and acute pancreatitis. Our literature review showed that bacterial and fungal infections are the major causes of exacerbation and mortality. The main cause of immunosuppression in children with neutropenic enterocolitis and acute pancreatitis is chemotherapy, and management of these pathologies using intravenous fluids, antibiotic therapy, and granulocyte-stimulating factors is the current standard of care. Surgical intervention is uncommon and reserved for complicated cases. That said, in acute appendicitis and bowel perforation, laparoscopy is the mainstay treatment. However, in systemic infections, nonsurgical interventions such as transfusion and bowel rest are the gold standard. As for acalculous cholecystitis, percutaneous cholecystectomy is superior to laparotomy and other surgical interventions.
Conclusion
Timely diagnosis and management of gastrointestinal complications in the immunocompromised children is key in reducing mortality and morbidity. Both surgical and nonsurgical interventions are needed and should be further studied in order to improve outcomes.