BACKGROUND Febrile neutropenia (FN) is a major dose-limiting toxicity of cancer chemotherapy resulting in considerable morbidity, mortality, and cost. This study evaluated the time course of neutropenic events and patterns of supportive care interventions in patients receiving chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer treated in oncology community practices. METHODS A prospective cohort stud...

BACKGROUND Infections are a common cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The evidence for efficacy of antibiotic prophylaxis in reducing the mortality rates and the incidence of bacterial infections was also reported by a systematic review published by Cochrane in 2012. The objective of our study was to report the incidence and the etiology of bloodstre...

BACKGROUND Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) bloodstream infection (BSI) is generally associated with the delayed administration of adequate antibiotics. The identification of risk factors and outcomes of VRE BSI is necessary for establishing strategies for managing neutropenic fever in patients with hematological malignancies. METHODS We retrospectively analysed consecutive cases of en...

We set out to compare the efficacy of antibiotic monotherapy with that of combination therapy including an aminoglycoside for empirical treatment of febrile neutropenic cancer patients. We did a meta-analysis of 29 randomised clinical trials pooling data from 4795 febrile episodes and a subset of 1029 bacteraemic episodes by both fixed and random effects models. Outcome measure was clinical fai...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to prospectively evaluate the efficacy and safety of micafungin (MCFG) in empirical therapy for febrile neutropenic patients for whom antibiotic therapy was not effective for hematological malignancies. PATIENTS AND METHODS Twenty-three hematological patients aged 27-82 years with febrile neutropenia for whom antibiotic therapy was not effective were en...

The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy, safety, and cost of piperacillin/tazobactam with cefepime monotherapy in children with febrile neutropenia. A prospective randomized study in children and adolescent with cancer was conducted. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either 80 mg/kg piperacillin/10 mg/kg tazobactam every 6 h (maximum 4.5 g/dose) or cefepime 50 mg/kg every...

BACKGROUND Biosimilars are similar but non-identical versions of existing biological drugs. The HEXAFIL study was an observational study that assessed the clinical usage, safety and efficacy of the biosimilar filgrastim in routine clinical practice in Germany. PATIENTS AND METHODS A total of 1,337 cancer patients received the biosimilar filgrastim for primary prophylaxis (PP), secondary proph...

The activities of azlocillin, cefotaxime, and amikacin alone and in combination were evaluated in in vitro checkerboard studies, in infected neutropenic mice, and in human volunteers. The combination of cefotaxime plus amikacin was more synergistic in vitro than the others against the Enterobacteriaceae tested, and the combination of azlocillin plus amikacin was more synergistic against Pseudom...

BACKGROUND Fever occurring in a neutropenic patient remains a common life-threatening complication of cancer chemotherapy. The common practice is to admit the patient to hospital and treat empirically with intravenous broad-spectrum antibiotics. Oral therapy could be an alternative approach for selected patients. OBJECTIVES To compare the efficacy of oral antibiotics versus intravenous (IV) a...