The effect of age on the bacteria isolated and the antibiotic-sensitivity pattern in infections among cancer patients

Abstract

This suggests that empirical antibiotic therapy needs to be changed on the basis of the age of the patient. It also appears that combination therapy is essential for the empirical treatment of infections in elderly patients with cancer.

Antimicrobial-resistant Gram-negative bacteria in febrile neutropenic patients with cancer

“…The main characteristics and results of the 24 studies published since 2007 that described the species distribution of bacterial isolates in patients with malignancies and febrile neutropenia are summarized in Table 1 [6-13,14 & , [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]25 & , [26][27][28][29]. In general, there is a certain level of heterogeneity among these studies.…”

“…Secondly, in 13 of the studies the bacterial isolates were collected during episodes of febrile neutropenia [7,8,10,11,13,14 & ,17,18,20,21,26,29]. Thirdly, the bacteria were isolated from different sources; 16 studies included BSIs only [7,8,[10][11][12]14 & , 15-18, 21,22,24,25 & ,27,29], and eight studies isolated the bacteria from clinical (and/or surveillance) samples for which the percentage of bloodstream isolates ranged from 42.9 to 74.8% in five studies [6,19,23,26,28] and was not reported in the remaining three [9,13,20]. Thirdly, the bacteria were isolated from different sources; 16 studies included BSIs only [7,8,[10][11][12]14 & , 15-18, 21,22,24,25 & ,27,29], and eight studies isolated the bacteria from clinical (and/or surveillance) samples for which the percentage of bloodstream isolates ranged from 42.9 to 74.8% in five studies [6,19,23,26,28] and was not reported in the remaining three [9,13,20].…”

“…Out of the remaining 11 studies, in five the rates of patients with neutropenia ranged from 39.4 to 62.2% [16,23,24,27,28]; in the other six studies, while neutropenic patients accounted for a large proportion of the patient population, the exact rate was not reported [6,9,15,19,22,25 & ]. Finally, the reported studies were conducted in different geographic areas: 11 studies in Asia [8,10,11,13,[15][16][17]19,22,26,29], nine in Western Europe [9,14 & ,18,20,21,24,25 & ,27,28], and four in the Middle East [6,7,12,23]. Finally, the reported studies were conducted in different geographic areas: 11 studies in Asia [8,10,11,13,[15][16][17]19,22,26,29], nine in Western Europe [9,14 & ,18,20,21,24,25 & ,27,28], and four in the Middle East [6,7,12,23].…”

“…Notably, in 14 out of the 24 studies, Gram-negatives represented the most frequently isolated bacteria [8-11,13,14 & , 16,19,[22][23][24]26,28,29]. Notably, in 14 out of the 24 studies, Gram-negatives represented the most frequently isolated bacteria [8-11,13,14 & , 16,19,[22][23][24]26,28,29].…”

“…Details of the in-vitro sensitivity profiles of E. coli isolates to the most common antimicrobial drugs were reported in 10 studies and are shown in Table 2 [7,8,10,11,13,15,18,19,22,31]. In general, more than 95% of the E. coli isolates were susceptible to carbapenems, with susceptibility rates ranging from 90.9 to 100% (means: 98.2% for imipenem and 96.4% for meropenem).…”