Commentary on TRALI in leukemia.

The paper by Fung YL and Williams BA describes TRALI in leukemic children in order to raise awareness of the need to include this in the differential diagnosis of acute respiratory distress. Detection of TRALI in children with other co-morbidities is difficult. Well-documented cases of TRALI in children are few due to the lack of recognition and difficulty in identifying the antibodies since these may not be always present. Hematology/oncology patients who are chronically transfused and are allo-immunized are at greater risk than the general pediatric population. Thus an awareness of this reaction to blood transfusion helps facilitate prompt treatment and preventive measures.