Study of Safety, Immunogenicity and Immunological Memory of 7-valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine in Children With Idiopathic Nephrotic Syndrome

Idiopathic nephrotic syndrome (INS) is the most frequent glomerular disease in children under 16 years old with incidence rate 2-7/100,000 patients/year depending on ethnicity. Those patients are susceptible to invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) including peritonitis, pneumonia with or without pleural effusion and meningitis. Due to increased mortality and risk of relapses associated with IPD, it has been recommended that children with INS should be immunized with pneumococcal conjugate vaccine [1]. However, concerns on vaccine safety and impaired immunogenicity due to INS pathogenesis and immunosuppressive treatment are a hurdle for universal implementation of existing guidelines.

To thoroughly evaluate safety of 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) in children with INS in remission, we will investigate a possible association of vaccination with increased risk for recurrences of INS. We will also study immunogenicity and kinetics of immune response in INS patients and healthy subjects and the effect of different types of treatment on primary immune response and antibody persistence at 12-14 months following vaccination with PCV7.