Objective: To describe an infant with severe pertussis successfully treated with leukopheresis.
Design: Case report.
Setting: Pediatric intensive care unit of a children's hospital.
Patient: Five-wk-old female with pertussis complicated by cardiorespiratory failure.
Interventions: Single leukopheresis treatment.
Measurements and main results: Normalization of the white blood cell count and marked cardiorespiratory improvement after treatment; patient survived.
Conclusion: Given the temporal association between treatment and improvement, we hypothesize that the markedly elevated white blood cell count has a major role in the cardiopulmonary compromise.