BACKGROUND Neutropenic patients with cancer may develop several episodes of fever and infection during chemotherapy-induced myeloaplasia. METHODS To identify risk factors for secondary infectious episodes among patients who responded to initial antibiotic therapy, we retrospectively analyzed 2 consecutive, prospective, randomized clinical trials performed by the International Antimicrobial Th...

Vancomycin is commonly added as empiric therapy for febrile neutropenia. A retrospective chart review was conducted at a large community teaching institution to evaluate vancomycin use in oncology patients. The results revealed that a majority of empiric vancomycin therapy was inappropriate, raising concern for antibiotic resistance and prompting opportunities for improvement.

Febrile neutropenia is a relatively frequent event in cancer patients treated with chemotherapy. In the United States, an estimated 60,000 patients a year are hospitalized for febrile neutropenia and neutropenia related infections (Cagganio et al., 2005). Our single institution data in previous two studies have shown the frequency to be ranging from 10 to 12 per month (Lal et al., 2008; Shaikh ...

Background: Antibiotic prophylaxis is usually used in allogenic stem cell transplantation, but its use in Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation (ASCT) is controversial. We evaluated the efficacy of ciprofloxacin prophylaxis in ASCT. Materials and Methods: To identify the efficacy of ciprofloxacin on the incidence of neutropenic fever and its complications, 72 patients had been admitted to Talegh...

Bacteremia following febrile neutropenia is a serious complication in children with malignancies. Preventive measures are currently targeted at antimicrobial prophylaxis, amelioration of drug-induced neutropenia, and nosocomial spread of pathogens, with little attention to community-acquired infections. A retrospective study was conducted at a pediatric oncology center during a 3-year period to...

Persistent or recurrent unexplained fever in neutropenic patients receiving antibiotics can be caused by invasive fungal infections, which are often difficult to diagnose. Early trials of empirical antifungal therapy with amphotericin B deoxycholate (AmB) documented reductions in the frequency of and the morbidity and mortality associated with invasive fungal infections. Because of AmB's infusi...

Population pharmacokinetic parameters of meropenem in 57 febrile neutropenic patients and minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) data for clinically isolated Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli were applied to estimate the time above the MIC (T>MIC) using the Monte Carlo simulation method. Mean population clearance (CL) and volume of distribution (V(d)) of meropenem were proportional to...

We ascertained the pharmacokinetics of imipenem in febrile granulocytopenic cancer patients. The values observed were both different from and significantly more variable than those observed in normal volunteers. Free drug concentrations exceeded the MIC for 90% of Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Staphylococcus aureus strains for greater than 6 h. The MIC for 90% of Pseudomonas aeru...

OBJECTIVE Elevated levels of a cell surface glycoprotein, soluble cluster of differentiation 14 (sCD14), have been observed in patients with sepsis. Only scarce data are available on sCD14 in hematological patients with chemotherapy-induced febrile neutropenia. The study aim was to investigate sCD14 as an early biomarker in febrile neutropenia after intensive chemotherapy to detect a rapidly de...

BACKGROUND Febrile neutropenia (FN) is generally a complication of cancer chemotherapy. OBJECTIVES We retrospectively evaluated the febrile neutropenia episodes and their outcomes with respect to modification rates of non-carbapenem-based empirical antibacterial therapy and vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE) colonisation that caused to VRE bacteremia in patients with hematological malign...