Prevalence of Infectious Complications in Children with Cancer - Journal of Cancer Therapy

JCT > Vol.10 No.12, December 2019

Prevalence of Infectious Complications in Children with Cancer ()

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DOI: 10.4236/jct.2019.1012080 463 Downloads 1,441 Views Citations

Author(s)

Zaheer Ullah Khan^1*, Nagi Amin², Gaafar Ahmed Mustafa Mohammad¹, Sanad Tarmoom¹, Mohammad Yousef AlGhar³, Anwaar Saud Aldahir³, Dayel AlShahrani²

Affiliation(s)

¹Department of Paediatric Haematology and Oncology, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
²Department of Infectious Diseases, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
³Department of General Paediatric, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

ABSTRACT

Background: Infections are the most common complications during chemotherapy. The trends have been changing over time due to use of multi-agent intensive chemotherapy. Procedure: We looked over our data to see what complications we get in our patients. The data was collected on patients treated in King Fahad Medical City from July 2009 to Dec 2015. Results: We found that 86 patients had one episode only while 92 had 2 or more episodes reaching up to 11 episodes in 1 patient. We found positive cultures in 17.3% of episodes with staphylococcus as common gram positive and Klebsiella pneumoniae as common gram negative bacteria, respiratory viral infections in 13.8% and GI infections in 9%. We found Candida albicans as the most common fungus while other yeasts followed. Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia was the most common diagnosis. The episodes were associated with neutropenia of <500 in 61.2% while 58.8% were associated with duration of neutropenia of >7 days in 1^st episode and 56.8% in cases with repeated episodes. We had 2 deaths one from recurrent infections with CNS (Central Nervous System) damage and one from Pulmonary infections causing pulmonary haemorrhage. We had one with persistent neurological sequele from prolonged fungal infection. Conclusions:Neutropenia of <500 and duration of >7 days came out to be significant risk factors for infection across all diseases. We have an acceptable level of morbidity and mortality due to good supportive services. We need prospective studies to get an up-to-date picture of our practice. We need prophylactic antibiotics and antifungals for high-risk patients like AML.

KEYWORDS

Infections, Cancer, Children

Share and Cite:

Khan, Z. , Amin, N. , Mohammad, G. , Tarmoom, S. , AlGhar, M. , Aldahir, A. and AlShahrani, D. (2019) Prevalence of Infectious Complications in Children with Cancer. Journal of Cancer Therapy, 10, 938-947. doi: 10.4236/jct.2019.1012080.

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