Type of Immunodeficiency, Treatment and Outcomes of Serious BCG Vaccine Complications: A 15 Year Survey

Background: to describe the immunologic characteristics and outcomes of the patients with serious bcg complication in a 15-year survey.materials and methods: a descriptive and retrospective study was performed in 2 referral pediatric infectious wards of central children hospital, and rasool akram hospital tehran, iran between 1989 and 2004.results: we studied 76 patients (72% male and 28% female) with serious bcg complications, mean age of 14.41 ± 1.43 months the results were follows:severe combined immunodeficiency 15.7 % of cases leukopenia 1.4%; lymphopenia in 2.8%; cell mediated immunodeficiency in 26.3 %, chronic granulomatous disease in 11.2%, common variable immunodeficiency 6.5 %; nk cell deficiency in 5.2%; isolated cd4 deficiency in 5.1 %; hyper igm syndrome in 1.4 %, mild abnormality in nitroblue tetrazolium (nbt) test 4.2 %;mild hypogammaglobulinemia in 4.2% and idiopathic disseminated bcg infection in 15.7% of patients. nineteen patients died due to progressive disseminated mycobacterial infections.conclusion: n.k cell deficiency has yet reported as a risk factor for progression and complication of bcg infection, we suggest combination therapy with ifn-s and chemotherapy in all cases of idiopathic disseminated bcg infections.