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Influenza is particularly virulent among immunocompromised people, but studies have been largely retrospective, without point-by-point comparisons with immunologically normal people during the same flu season. Now, NIH investigators have prospectively evaluated 32 immunocompromised patients (25 with hematologic malignancies, 7 with solid tumors) who presented with culture-confirmed influenza between 2008 and 2011. Compared with 54 nonimmunocompromised influenza patients (a group that included patients with well-controlled HIV infection) treated during the same years, immunocompromised patients were less likely to be overweight and to be current smokers and also less likely to be vaccinated (25% vs. 60%).
Fever was reported by about 80% of bo…