Abstract
Neutropenia is the most important risk factor for infection. Neutropenic patients presenting with fever are usually treated empirically with broad-spectrum antimicrobial agents. The prompt treatment and proper antimicrobial agents will be decrease the mortality and morbidity. However, most of the data have been collected from patients in western countries and other hospitals. The purpose of the study was to identify type of infections and etiologic organisms in febrile neutropenia at Khon Kaen Hospital and also to identify different factors between groups. The medical records of patients who identify as febrile neutropenia in department of Medicine Khon Kaen Hospital from October 2003 through September 2004 were analyzed. Data included patient characteristics, epidemiological data, bacteriological data and the potential factors at the onset of fever for predicting patient outcome. Of 220 patients with 228 febrile neutropenic episodes were included,50 % had acute leukemia ,19.6 % had other hematologic malignancy, 5.7%had solid tumor 16.3 % had aplastic anemia, and 8.4% had other diagnosis such as drug induced neutropenia . Clinical outcome was improved 78.9 %. Overall mortality was 19.7 %. Blood culture was positive in 90 episodes ( 15.6%) and gram negative bacilli were the most common causative organism in bacteremia (59.8%) .The most common empirical antimicrobial agents were ceftazidime and amikacin. Univariate analysis revealed that the factors different between two groups were age ,pulse rate , underying disease , disease activity, burden of illness, ECOG performance status and co-morbidity.