Recurrent Bacterial Infections in Children

Abstract

THE presence of recurrent bacterial infections in a child raises the discomforting possibility of some type of underlying immunodeficiency disease. None of these diseases is common, and the money spent and blood withdrawn searching for them can be excessive.¹ Yet the consequences of allowing such a disorder to go undiagnosed, even for days or weeks, can be grave indeed. Thus, careful physicians must entertain the possibility of an immunodeficiency disease much more frequently than they expect to diagnose one.How can this process of diagnostic exploration be accomplished efficiently? Beginning the process by selecting laboratory tests from the long complicated . . .