Trimethoprim-Sulfamethoxazole Prophylaxis in the Management of Chronic Granulomatous Disease

Abstract

Long-term oral antimicrobial prophylaxis is accepted practice in the management of patients with chronic granulomatous disease (CGD). Reports of adverse outcome with trimethoprimsulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) prophylaxis in other patient groups, and the recent occurrence ofseveral severe fungal infections in patients followed at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), prompted a review of the NIH experience to examine the incidence of nonfungal and fungal infections in CGD patients with and without TMP-SMX prophylaxis. Prophylaxis decreased the incidence of nonfungal infections from 7.1 to 2.4 per 100 patient-months in patients with autosomal CGD (P < .01) and from 15.8 to 6.9 infections per 100 patient-months (P = .06) in X-linked CGD patients. There was no significant change in the incidence of fungal infection in CGD patients on TMP-SMX (1.5–03 fungal infections/100 patient-months in autosomal CGD and 1.7–0.2 fungal infections/100 patient-months in X-linked CGD patients). TMP-SMX prophylaxis is indicated for the management of patients with CGD and decreases the incidence of nonfungal infections without increasing the incidence of fungal infections.