A multidisciplinary team at Michigan Medicine has reported the first successful use of a selective cytopheretic device (SCD) in a neutropenic pediatric patient with refractory septic shock and multiorgan failure. The case, recently published in Pediatric Nephrology, describes the innovative application of this immunomodulatory therapy in a 10-year-old male, marking a potential new treatment avenue for high-risk immunocompromised patients. The patient, a renal transplant recipient maintained on triple immunosuppression, visited for evaluation of a new abdominal mass and was diagnosed with mature B-cell leukemia.
He was treated with induction chemotherapy and discharged, but returned shortly thereafter with fever, hypotension, abdominal pain, jaundice, and pancytopenia. Rapid clinical deterioration followed, with progression to septic shock and failure of five organ systems:…
