Transplant/Immune Compromised

The Transplant Infectious Disease (TID) group provides expertise in prevention, diagnosis, and management of infections in patients with solid organ transplants (SOTs) and hematopoietic stem cell transplants (HSCTs).  Clinical support encompasses participation in weekly clinical meetings of the transplant teams, providing advice for patients with active infections, supporting the inpatient infectious disease consult teams evaluating transplant patients, performing pre-transplant evaluations, providing outpatient consultation, and creation of clinical guidelines.  Educational initiatives include teaching students, residents, and fellows about opportunistic infections in immunocompromised patients, as well as, educating transplant team members, participating in educational activities for transplant families, and speaking at conferences.  Research includes participation in multidisciplinary and multi-center clinical and quality improvement studies that have resulted in multiple peer-reviewed scientific publications; current projects are listed below.  Administrative contributions include support of the Transplant Line of Service at Children’s Hospital Colorado (CHCO), participation in QI/QA initiatives related to infections in immunocompromised patients, and creation of clinical guidance documents.  Advocacy efforts include participation in hospital-wide committees to make sure the unique needs of transplant and immunocompromised patients are recognized during policy decision-making.

Recent and Current Projects

  • Quality improvement initiative aimed at ensuring patients are up to date on vaccines before SOT and after HSCT
  • Participation in the creation and ongoing activities of the Children’s Hospital Colorado (CHCO) Invasive Fungal Infection Working Group that meets regularly to review invasive fungal infections
  • Review of bloodstream infections in HSCT patients to inform prophylaxis and treatment guidelines
  • Collaboration with the CHCO Antimicrobial Stewardship and HSCT teams to review antimicrobial usage among BMT programs nationwide using the PHIS (Pediatric Hospital Information System) database to inform local practice
  • Participation in a multi-center study of the safety and immunogenicity of live vaccines in transplant patients
  • Evaluation of the pharmacology of anti-infectives in transplant patients
  • Participation in studies of the PIDTRAN (Pediatric Infectious Disease Transplant ID) research network
  • Creation and updating of clinical guidelines on COVID-19, post-transplant monitoring of recipients of high-risk donors, and post-transplant vaccination guidelines for HSCT patients
  • Development of an outpatient clinic for patients with immunocompromising conditions complicated by infection

Our team members include

  • Mark Abzug, MD:  Professor of Pediatrics and Vice Chair for Academic Affairs
  • Samantha Bacon, PA-C:  Instructor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Transplant Infectious Disease
  • Juri Boguniewicz, MD:  Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Transplant Infectious Disease
  • Donna Curtis, MD, MPH:  Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology, Transplant Infectious Disease, Infectious Disease Clinical Medical Director, Fellowship Program Director