TITLE:
Prevalence of Infectious Complications in Children with Cancer
AUTHORS:
Zaheer Ullah Khan, Nagi Amin, Gaafar Ahmed Mustafa Mohammad, Sanad Tarmoom, Mohammad Yousef AlGhar, Anwaar Saud Aldahir, Dayel AlShahrani
KEYWORDS:
Infections, Cancer, Children
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Cancer Therapy,
Vol.10 No.12,
December
17,
2019
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 lookedoverour 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:Wefound 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 7 days in 1stepisode 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 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.