Preparing for safety monitoring after rotavirus vaccine implementation: a retrospective review of intussusception cases among children at a large teaching hospital in Rwanda, 2009-2012.

Background: In some settings, rotavirus vaccines have been associated with a small risk of intussusception. This study describes the demographics, clinical characteristics and outcomes of children with intussusception in Rwanda before vaccine introduction in May 2012.

Methods: We retrospectively reviewed data on pediatric patients treated for intussusception at University Teaching Hospital of Kigali from January 2009 to June 2012. Hospital registries were reviewed to identify intussusception cases. Archived patient files were abstracted to collect data on demographics, clinical presentation, surgery and outcome.

Results: During the study period, 70 children ≤19 years of age were treated for intussusception and patient files were retrieved for 60 (86%) cases. Over half of patients (58%) were <1 year of age and 90% were transferred from a district hospital. Only 30% of patients presented within 3 days of symptom onset and 35% experienced a delay of ≥6 hours between surgical review and surgery. Surgical complications were experienced by 35% of children. Over 1 quarter (28%) of children died. Compared with children who survived, children who died were significantly more likely to have experienced complications (21% vs. 71%; P < 0.001) and to be female (28% vs. 65%; P = 0.009).

Discussion: Mortality due to intussusception was high among Rwanda children. Delays in presentation and treatment were common. Assessing trends in the number of cases to monitor for vaccine-associated intussusception will be difficult. Additional work is needed to further understand risk factors for mortality, to calculate incidence rates and to monitor the safety of the rotavirus vaccination program.