Steroids And Chicken Pox Not A Good Mix
Children who have been treated with steroids and
are exposed to chicken pox tend to have a more
severe case of the virus, according to pediatric
oncologists at Brenner Children's Hospital,
part of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical
Center. New research published in the October
issue of Pediatrics, says that children who are
undergoing steroid treatments for diseases like
childhood leukemia are at increased risk of contracting
a more severe form of chicken pox, which may result
in death. "
Steroids are used to treat leukemia
and they suppress the immune system," said
Thomas McLean, a pediatric oncologist at Brenner
Children's Hospital. "When a child is
exposed to the varicella virus (the virus that
causes chicken pox) around the time they are receiving
steroid treatment, they are more likely to contract
a more severe case of chicken pox."
McLean
and his colleagues studied 697 patients with acute
leukemia over a nine-year period. About 16 percent
or 110 patients contracted chicken pox. Of those
110 patients, 54 had severe disease, including
two deaths. Of the patients whose chicken pox
was diagnosed within three weeks of taking steroids,
70 percent had severe infection whereas only 44
percent of those who had not received steroid
therapy within three weeks had severe infection.
Although the study was limited to patients with
leukemia, the findings may apply to other conditions
for which steroids are used, McLean said. "One
of the things we need to remember to ask before
we prescribe steroid treatment is whether the
child has had a recent exposure to chicken pox,"
McLean said. "If so, we recommend waiting
until the incubation period has passed before
beginning steroid therapy." Steroids are a
common and highly successful treatment for many
childhood cancers, McLean said. "We just need
to make sure we don't mix the two," he
added. "Steroids and the chicken pox virus
don't go together.
They are a bad combination." Chicken pox
is usually mild, but it can be serious and even
life threatening. In , a chickenpox vaccine was
developed to help prevent the spread of the virus.
Prior to the widespread use of the varicella vaccine,
approximately 12,000 people were hospitalized
for chicken pox each year in the United States
and 100 died as a result of the disease, according
to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Since the introduction of the vaccine, the
incidence of varicella has decreased steadily.
We hope one day to eradicate the disease all together,"
McLean said.
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