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While many sessions during the Tandem Meetings | Transplantation & Cellular Therapy Meetings of ASTCT® and CIBMTR® will share conclusive data and consensus best practices, others will provide a stimulating opportunity to explore the ambiguous areas of clinical care in a collaborative environment. An Infectious Diseases Debate, 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. MST on Wednesday, Feb. 4, in Room 251 of the Salt Palace Convention Center, will interrogate two topics that care teams are likely to encounter but lack simple solutions.
The first discussion will focus on whether routine prophylaxis for patients exhibiting recurrent Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) infection is necessary. Brendon Fusco, MD, Montefiore Hospital (Bronx), will argue in favor of treatment that incorporates prophylaxis. Stuart Cohen, MD, University of California, Davis, will present the potential downsides to this approach.
Session Co-Moderator Tessa Andermann, MD, MPH, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, explained that while secondary prophylaxis is more widely accepted for patients likely to undergo cell immunotherapy, primary prophylaxis is not routine.
“The guidelines note consideration for primary prophylaxis in the setting of outbreaks, but not routinely,” said Dr. Andermann. “Even in our center during a rise in C. diff incidence, we’ve had long debates about whether or not to start prophylaxis.”
She noted that despite observational data and randomized control trial results favoring primary prophylaxis, there is still concern surrounding the increased risk of resistant organisms, along with the overall negative impact of antibiotics on the gut microbiome.
“The reduction in specific commensal bacteria, mostly obligate anaerobes in the gut, has been associated with increased risk for not just infections, but immunologic complications like graft-versus-host disease, and even increased mortality,” Dr. Andermann explained. “So, we have tried as much as we can with these patients to be judicious with their antibiotics, but there’s always that balance between risk and benefit.”
The second debate in this session will examine the cost-benefit analysis that providers must consider when deciding whether to use advanced imaging to gain insights into a patient’s condition with an infectious disease — specifically, PET/CT imaging. Sanjay Jain, MD, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, will argue in favor of advanced imaging techniques for infectious diseases. Abby Douglas, MBBS, BMedSci, FRACP, PhD, from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Australia, will take the opposing position and highlight alternative methods.
Joshua Hill, MD, University of Washington School of Medicine (Seattle), session co-moderator, explained that PET imaging is a powerful tool capable of identifying hyperactive cells and inflammation anywhere in the body. Though, as many clinicians are likely aware, leveraging this technology comes at a cost, one that insurers can decline to cover.
“There are limitations in getting patients into the PET scanner because it’s a more advanced procedure, which limits routine access,” Dr. Hill said. “There’s also a big expense there, so it’s not usually the first thing we reach for, but it gives us a lot more information than a chest X-ray or a CT scan.”
The discussion will also showcase new infectious disease-specific technologies in development to pinpoint infections, such as pathogen-specific tracers.
“I think this is an area that’s ripe for more research,” Hill asserted. “Hopefully, the session discussion will trigger ideas and potentially put someone on a new trajectory or stimulate collaborations and ideas for how to think about this area more because it is a very understudied space.”
On-demand content will be available for this session. Visit the 2026 Tandem Meetings website to browse the full program listing.
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If you aren’t able to make it to a live session during the 2026 Tandem Meetings — or you want to revisit a session — you can watch on-demand recordings within hours of the live presentations via digital access.
