About Secondary Immunodeficiency

Secondary immunodeficiency is a result of failure of components of the immune system that are mainly involved in protecting against infection. This may be a failure of production of immune cells or, although cell numbers are normal, they do not function well. Secondary immunodeficiency can occur from many causes including, treatment for certain cancers (lymphoma, lymphocytic leukemia) by radiation, drug therapy or bone marrow transplant for cancer, treatment by bone marrow transplant for other non-cancer conditions such as metabolic disease or treatment by bone marrow transplant for other non-cancer conditions such as metabolic disease