Their study was not the first to show that transplant patients
get rhinovirus but the first to definitively link the virus to pneumonia in these patients.
«So many of our patients
get rhinovirus, but most of the infections are mild and we want to know who would likely benefit from any potential therapies,» Waghmare said.
Not exact matches
Her team's next step will be to understand whether certain patients are at higher risk for
getting infected with
rhinovirus in the first place and to ask if there are other risk factors for pneumonia and other poor outcomes from the infection.
«This is such a prevalent virus... about 25 percent of stem cell transplant patients
get infected [with
rhinovirus] during the first year,» said Boeckh, who heads Fred Hutch's Infectious Disease Sciences Program.