Scientific report 2024 of the Infectious Diseases Working Party (IDWP)

Adequate management of transplant infectious complications is of paramount importance to improve patient outcome following HCT or CAR-T therapy. The IDWP continues to enriching the knowledge on infections, providing guidelines on their management, and promoting education. 

Team update

After four successful years of serving as an IDWP Chair, Rafael de la Camara (Spain) has completed his term. Dina Averbuch (Israel) was elected as a Chair of the IDWP, Jan Styczynski (Poland) is a Secretary of IDWP, and Dilnasheen Safdar (Pakistan) joined an IDWP as a nurse.

IDWP Organigram

Ten IDWP subcommittees, chaired by IDWP board members, are actively involved in the ongoing and planned scientific activities. The IDWP organigram is presented on the IDWP Webpage.

Scientific activity

During 2024 IDWP published 7 manuscripts, had 4 oral and 7 poster presentations. Among them:

• Novel ECIL-9 recommendations on management of toxoplasmosis in HSCT recipients (Aerts, … Cordonnier Lanc Inf Dis 2024)
• In collaboration with the Practice Harmonization and Guidelines Committee, the IDWP experts development definitions related to community-acquired respiratory viruses and ADV infections in HCT recipients (Pinana, Cesaro Curr Res Transl Med 24)
• A new analysis of the COVID-19 database revealed decreased COVID-19-related mortality over time (Spanjaart, Ljungman Leukemia 2024)
• A registry-based analysis of factors associated with mortality in children and adults with adenovirus (ADV) infection after allo-HCT (Styczynski BMT 2024)
• Two retrospective multinational case-control study identified risk factors for Nocardiosis and Listeriosis among HSCT patients (De Greef, Averbuch J Infection 2024; Averbuch et al. TCT 2024)

Educational activities:

• a Joint Symposium with European Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases in Copenhagen, attended by ~450 participants
• an ECIL-10 meeting providing guidelines on CMV infections (Chairs Per Ljungman and Rafael de la Camara), Clostridioides difficile infections (Malgorzata Mikulska), antifungal prophylaxis (Livio Pagano), COVID-19 (Simone Cesaro), respiratory infections (Hans Hirsch), and febrile neutropenia (Dina Averbuch).
• 27th IDWP-EBMT Educational Course of the IDWP took place in Geneva, Switzerland, with 110 attendees from 22 countries. An excellent scientific program prepared by the local organizers (Anne Bergeron and Dennis Neofytos) was highly appreciated by attendees. Seven young physicians presented cases and four educational grants were awarded by the EBMT.