Scientific report 2025 of the Infectious Diseases Working Party (IDWP)

Infectious complications cause significand morbidity in patients following stem cell transplantation and CAR-T therapy. IDWP EBMT continues to lead the scientific, investigational and educational activities related to infections in this patient populations.

We are proud to share the achievements of our members. Catherine Cordonnier (Creteil, France) was nominated as an honorary member of the EBMT. Rafael de la Camara, a former IDWP Chair, was elected President of European Conference on Infections in Leukaemia (ECIL).

Scientific activity

The IDWP is one of the participating bodies to the European Conference on Infections in Leukaemia (ECIL). During 2025 seven ECIL guidelines were published, providing recommendations on the management viral hepatitis B, C, E (Mikulska, et al), CMV (Ljungman et al), post-pandemic management of COVID (Cesaro et al), Clostridioides difficile (Mikulska, et al), empirical and targeted therapy of febrile neutropenia (Averbuch et al), community-acquired respiratory viruses (von Lilienfeld-Toal et al), and antifungal prophylaxis (Pagano et al). These guidelines were published in top-ranked medical journals, including The Lancet group, Leukemia, and the Journal of Infection

During 2025 we published 18 manuscripts, and presented our studies in 7 oral and 4 poster presentations. Among IDWP publications:

1. Multinational studies on the management of tuberculosis (Drozd-Sokołowska et al), Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy (Dybko et al), and HHV-6 (Perruccio, Cesaro et al) and a Survey on the management of hemorrhagic cystitis (Cesaro et al)
2. Harmonised definitions of pneumonia (Neofytos et al) and blood stream infections (Averbuch et al) in HCT setting developed within Practice Harmonization and Guidelines Committee workshop
3. Survey on Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and related infections in hematopoietic cellular therapy (HCT) in adults and children, performed with involvement of the representatives of the Worldwide Network for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (WBMT) (Snowden et al)
4. Reviews on the management of CMV in children (Galaverna et al) and how to deal with the pre-HCT respiratory viruses infections (Pinana et al)

During 2025, IDWP launched six new studies, including a pilot study using the Study Manager tool on HIV infection, a retrospective study on the real-world use of maribavir, and several surveys. In addition, in collaboration with the TCWP, we developed an approach to infectious and non-infectious central nervous system (CNS) complications during the 3rd Practice Harmonization and Guidelines Committee workshop.

IDWP places great importance on developing the next generation of scientists by actively involving young investigators in ECIL guidelines, research, and the Practice Harmonization and Guidelines Committee activities.

We are very grateful to our outstanding team of study coordinators and biostatisticians!

Educational activities:

IDWP participated extensively in the 51st Annual EBMT Conference, held in Florence in 2025. Infection-related topics were featured across the IDWP session, workshops, Meet-the-Expert sessions, educational sessions, and Trainee Day. The educational session on viral infections ranked among the top ten most attended in-person sessions.

Infectious complications ranked first among the top ten categories of submitted abstracts, and infection-related studies were presented in two dedicated abstract sessions.

The 28th IDWP–EBMT Educational Course took place in Würzburg, Germany, with 129 participants from 29 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America. The excellent scientific program, prepared by the local organizer Daniel Teschner, was highly appreciated by attendees. For the first time, the course included a thought-provoking and stimulating session on basic research and translational science, featuring fascinating presentations.

Twelve young physicians presented challenging cases from their clinical practice and four educational grants were awarded by the EBMT.