Febrile neutropenia: significance of elaborated screening for respiratory viruses, and the comparison of different sampling methods, in neutropenic patients with hematological malignancies

Table 1 Patient characteristics

	Group A	Group B	Group C
Number of neutropenic episodes	N = 81	N = 46	N = 42
No individual patients	66	41	38
Age (IQR⁵)	57 (49–64)	56 (38–64)	59 (50–65)
Sex female (%)	34 (42%)	14 (30%)	24 (57%)
Hematological disorder:
AML (%)	36 (44%)	17 (37%)	23 (55%)
CML (%)	3 (4%)	1 (2%)	2 (5%)
ALL (%)	8 (10%)	8 (17%)	1 (2%)
CLL (%)	3 (4%)	3 (7%)	0
HL (%)	2 (2%)	0	2 (5%)
NHL (%)	11 (14%)	7 (15%)	4 (10%)
MM (%)	14 (17%)	9 (18%)	7 (17%)
Other (%)	4 (5%)	2 (4%)	3 (7%)
Treatment type:
Chemotherapy (%)	-	29 (63%)	29 (69%)
AutoSCT (%)	-	11 (24%)	12 (29%)
AlloSCT r.i. (%)	-	2 (4%)	1 (2%)
AlloSCT m.a. (%)	-	4 (9%)	1 (2%)
T cell reducing medicine (%)	-	3 (6%)	3 (7%)
Explicit Mucositis (%)	-	24 (52%)	25 (60%)
Duration of neutropenia at sampling (IQR⁵)	-	6 (5–8)	8 (3–12)
COPD (%)	1 (1%)	1 (2%)	0
Smoking (%)	7 (9%)	4 (9%)	3 (7%)
URTS^a (%)	15/71⁶ (21%)	6 (13%)	9 (24%)
LRTS^b	0	0	1 (2%)
Pulmonary aberration’s on imagery (%)	-	2 (4%)	10/32^c (31%)
Probable Aspergillosis (%)	-	0	3 (7%)
Positive Blood cultures (%)	-	-	12^d (29%)

Group A; Baseline population at onset of chemotherapy, Group B; Patients with deep neutropenia, without fever, Group C; Patients with deep neutropenia and fever . IQR Inter quartile range, AML Acute myeloid leukemia, CML Chronic myeloid leukemia, ALL Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, CLL Chronic lymphoblastic leukemia, HL Hodgkin lymphoma, NHL Non Hodgkin lymphoma. AutoSCT Autologous stem cell transplantation, AlloSCT r.t. Allogeneic stem cell transplantation reduced intensity, regimen, AlloSCT m.a. Allogeneic stem cell transplantation myeloablative regimen. RTS respiratory tract symptoms.
^aURTS Upper respiratory tract symptoms (i.e. rhinitis, sneezing, ear/nose congestions).
^bLRTS Lower respiratory tract symptoms (i.e. dyspnea, or coughing in combination with auscultation of the lung suggesting bronchitis/pneumonia, or coughing in combination with abnormalities on lung imagery, suspected for infection.
^c Respiratory imaging was performed in 32 of the patients.
^d Eleven of 12 bloodcultures contained bacteria normally found on the skin (mainly coagulase-negative staphylococcae); in most of the cases this was interpreted by the clinician as a possible central venous catheter infection.

ISSN: 1743-422X