Gut microbiome in children undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is used in children as a treatment for various cancers, e.g. acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), or other diseases, e.g. severe congenital immunodeficiency, metabolic disorders, hence the patient population is quite diverse. There is an increasing interest on the role of the microbiome in peri-transplant period. In this review, concepts of HSCT with the focus on the importance of microbiome composition, its changes during treatment and possible microbiota oriented interventions will be discussed. This paper analyzes data in pediatric population, but in view of interesting results and absence of analogous data for pediatric patients, it also looks at studies performed on adult population and pre-clinical trials on animals discussing possible translation to children.