Nocardiosis Associated with Primary Immunodeficiencies (Nocar-DIP): an International Retrospective Study and Literature Review

• Published in: Journal of clinical immunology 2020-11, Vol.40 (8), p.1144-1155
• Main Authors: Lafont, Emmanuel, Marciano, Beatriz E., Mahlaoui, Nizar, Neven, Bénédicte, Bustamante, Jacinta, Rodriguez-Nava, Veronica, Rawat, Amit, Unzaga, Miren Josebe, Fischer, Alain, Blanche, Stéphane, Lortholary, Olivier, Holland, Steven M., Lebeaux, David
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Chronic granulomatous disease; Diagnosis; Immunodeficiency; Immunology; Infectious Diseases; Interleukin 12; Internal Medicine; Life Sciences; Literature reviews; Medical Microbiology; Microbiology and Parasitology; Mortality; Nocardiosis; Original Article; Patients; Primary immunodeficiencies
• ISSN: 0271-9142; 1573-2592
• DOI: 10.1007/s10875-020-00866-8

Purpose Nocardiosis is a life-threatening infectious disease. We aimed at describing nocardiosis in patients with primary immunodeficiency diseases (PID). Methods This international retrospective cohort included patients with PID and nocardiosis diagnosed and/or published from Jan 1, 2000, to Dec 31, 2016. To identify nocardiosis cases, we analyzed PID databases from the French National Reference Center for PID (Paris, France) and the National Institute of Health (NIH, United States of America) and we performed a literature review on PubMed. Results Forty-nine cases of nocardiosis associated with PID were included: median age at diagnosis of nocardiosis was 19 (0–56) years and most cases were observed among chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) patients (87.8%). Median time from symptoms to diagnosis of Nocardia infection was 20 (2–257) days. Most frequent clinical nocardiosis presentation was pneumonia (86.7%). Twelve-month mortality rate was 4.2%, and 11.9% of patients experienced a possible recurrence of infection. Nocardiosis more frequently led to the diagnosis of PID among non-CGD patients than in CGD patients. Non-CGD patients experienced more cerebral nocardiosis and more disseminated infections, but mortality and recurrence rates were similar. Highest incidences of nocardiosis among PID cohorts were observed among CGD patients (0.0057 and 0.0044 cases/patient-year in the USA and in France, respectively), followed by IL-12p40 deficiency. Conclusions Among 49 cases of nocardiosis associated with PID, most patients had CGD and lung involvement. Both mortality and recurrence rates were low.