Abstract
Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are an emerging cause of infections, including chronic lymphadenitis in children. To identify risk factors for NTM lymphadenitis, particularly complicated disease, we collected epidemiologic, clinical, and microbiological data on 138 cases of NTM lymphadenitis in children across 13 centers in Germany and Austria. We assessed lifestyle factors but did not identify specific risk behaviors. We noted that more cases of NTM lymphadenitis occurred during cold months than during warm months. Moreover, we noted female sex and age <5.5 years as potential risk factors. Complete extirpation of the affected lymph node appeared to be the best therapeutic measure. We integrated the study data to develop a simple risk score to predict unfavorable clinical outcomes for NTM lymphadenitis.
Highlights
Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are an emerging cause of infections, including chronic lymphadenitis in children
Sociodemographic information, history of Lymphadenitis Caused by NTM in Children prior diseases, and behavior related to possible NTM exposure did not differ substantially between female and male patients
In this study, we found that girls 18–36 months of age were at highest risk for NTM lymphadenitis, which aligns with findings of studies conducted in other geographic locations [3,4,7,18,19,20,21]
Summary
Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are an emerging cause of infections, including chronic lymphadenitis in children. To identify risk factors for NTM lymphadenitis, complicated disease, we collected epidemiologic, clinical, and microbiological data on 138 cases of NTM lymphadenitis in children across 13 centers in Germany and Austria. We noted that more cases of NTM lymphadenitis occurred during cold months than during warm months. We integrated the study data to develop a simple risk score to predict unfavorable clinical outcomes for NTM lymphadenitis. Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are common in the environment. Some authors suggest the incidence of NTM infections in immunocompetent persons has been increasing in recent years [4,5,6,7], but little longitudinal data in well-defined epidemiologic contexts have been reported
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