[Prevention of severe infections in patients with hyposplenism or asplenia].

Each year, up to a 1000 splenectomies are performed in the Netherlands. Aside from patients without a spleen, there is also a large group of patients with hyposplenism or functional asplenia due to other primary diseases. All these patients are at risk of developing severe infections, such as post-splenectomy sepsis (PSS), which is associated with very high mortality. However PSS can partly be prevented by taking simple measures such as immunizations and prophylactic or early use of antibiotics. Healthcare professionals in first and secondary care in the Netherlands are generally not well informed about which preventive measures should be taken to prevent these infections, resulting in often suboptimal management of patients. In this article, recommendations are given on vaccination and administration of antibiotics to prevent severe infections such as PSS in this group of patients.