You are asked to review a 25-year-old patient with severe diarrhoea. He is two weeks post-allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant.
Causes
Drugs: promotility agents, antibiotics
Infection – multiple possible organisms
Radiation
Neutropenic enterocolitis
VHD
Outline your assessment and management
ABC
History:
Details of the indication for and type of transplant – esp. HLA matching etc.
Details of pre-transplant chemo/radiation etc.
Course and complications post-transplant
Whether engraftment has occurred
Medication history – esp. antibiotics
Details related to diarrhoea – associated with pain, blood etc,
Examination:
General physical with specific attention to Volume status
Abdominal examination – signs of peritonitis Signs of GVHD: rash, liver tenderness
Investigations:
Standard blood tests -FBC, Electrolytes, LFT’s, Cultures Stool culture including C difficile PCR
Plain AXR CT abdomen
Sigmoidoscopy +- biopsy
Discussion
Management
Fluid resuscitation – volume loss replaced by saline or balanced salt solution
Electrolyte replacement – as required but particularly potassium and magnesium
Nutrition – general enteral nutrition is satisfactory but TPN may be required where whole bowel rest is required
Antidiarrheal – loperamide can be used once infectious cause has been excluded
Anti-secretory – octreotide – particularly in early GvHD
Infection control, contact proportions
Treatment of underlying cause e.g. GVHD, C Diff.
This question is functionally quite similar to Question 11 from the first paper of 2014, except in 20144 this patient was a 65-year-old male, 18 days following BMT for multiple myeloma, and who clearly has some serious abdominal pathology.
The causes of diarrrhoea in a bone marrow transplant recipient are so vastly numerous that they require a table to manage them:
Infectious |
Non-Infectious |
Viruses
Bacteria:
Parasites
Fungi
|
Immunosuppressant therapy
Consequences of BMT
ICU therapy
|
Assessment:
Management:
UpToDate have a good article on acute diarrhoea for the paying customer.
Kelly, T. W. J., M. R. Patrick, and K. M. Hillman. "Study of diarrhea in critically ill patients." Critical care medicine 11.1 (1983): 7-9.
Wiesen, Patricia, Andre Van Gossum, and Jean-Charles Preiser. "Diarrhoea in the critically ill." Current opinion in critical care 12.2 (2006): 149-154.
Ferrie, Suzie, and Vivienne East. "Managing diarrhoea in intensive care."Australian Critical Care 20.1 (2007): 7-13.
Pawlowski, Sean W., Cirle Alcantara Warren, and Richard Guerrant. "Diagnosis and treatment of acute or persistent diarrhea." Gastroenterology 136.6 (2009): 1874-1886.
Schiller, Lawrence R. "Diarrhea." Medical Clinics of North America 84.5 (2000): 1259-1274.
Timothy A. Woods. "Diarrhea." Chapter 88 in: Clinical Methods: The History, Physical, and Laboratory Examinations. 3rd edition. Boston: Butterworths; 1990.
Guerrant, Richard L., et al. "Practice guidelines for the management of infectious diarrhea." Clinical infectious diseases 32.3 (2001): 331-351.
Cox, George J., et al. "Etiology and outcome of diarrhea after marrow transplantation: a prospective study." Gastroenterology 107.5 (1994): 1398-1407.
Hamdeh, Shadi, et al. "Clinical approach to diarrheal disorders in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients." World Journal of Hematology 5.1 (2016): 23-30.