Pediatric oncology and hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) patients with a critical illness are a particularly challenging population with a unique presentation, diagnosis, and management. One in every three to four children with cancer will require admission to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) during the course of their treatment. Providing optimum care for these patients involves dedicated multidisciplinary collaboration to provide timely and appropriate management. Onco-critical care is a growing field of expertise for the care of this high acuity patient population. Recent work in this field has focused on sepsis, respiratory complications, and multi-organ failure in HCT patients, demonstrating significantly higher morbidity and mortality compared to other critically ill pediatric patients.

For the past decade, the HCT/oncology subgroup of the Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigators (PALISI) Network has fostered both research and clinical collaborations between oncologists, transplanters, and critical care physicians with the goal to improve outcomes in critically ill oncology and HCT patients. Contributors to this Research Topic will be actively recruited from this network.

This Research Topic aims to provide novel insights into the developing field of pediatric onco-critical care and to stimulate further discussion in this emerging yet important field of research. We would like to include Original Research and Review articles that focus on pathophysiology, diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes of critical complications in pediatric oncology and HCT patients. Topics will include both basic science and clinical research with a strong focus on, but not limited to, the following:

1) Endothelial dysfunction and its role in complications of HCT
2) Respiratory complications of HCT
3) Thrombotic microangiopathy
4) Veno-occlusive disease
5) Long-term outcomes
6) Organ failure and management
7) CAR T-Cell therapy
8) Sepsis and infectious complications
9) Implications for resource-limited settings
10) International collaborations in Pediatric Onco-Critical Care
11) Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis and Macrophage Activation Syndrome
12) The role of delirium in critical illness involving HCT and oncology patients

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Frontiers in Oncology

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