Does age play a role in fever and neutropenia events and complications:
A comparison of adolescents versus younger children with cancer at a
tertiary care pediatric hospital, a pilot project
Abstract
Background: Adolescents and young adults with cancer (AYA) are a complex
group of patients. The development of fever and neutropenia (FN) is a
potentially lethal complication of chemotherapy. Risk stratification of
patients with FN has become increasingly valuable allowing for early
intervention and for the use of lower intensity treatments. There are
risk stratification guidelines that exist, but most are validated in
young children with cancer (YCWC). AYA are frequently shown to have more
numerous and severe side effects from chemotherapy. This study aimed to
identify whether age contributes to the incidence and severity of FN.
Procedure: Patients diagnosed with a malignancy in a 5-year period at
our institution were included from ages 0-18 yrs. We reviewed details of
their FN events, including duration of hospital admission, source
(bacterial/fungal), PICU admission and duration, positive blood cultures
and mortality. Results: Adolescents with cancer (AWC) had a trend of
being 1.56 times more likely to have FN events (CI 95% 0.936-2.622,
p=0.087). Assessment of the duration of PICU stay showed that AWC were
4.9 times more likely to have longer admissions (CI 95% 0.998-24.067,
p=0.050). There was no significant difference between the two groups in
the rate of PICU admission, positive cultures, identification of a
bacterial or fungal source, hospital admission duration or mortality.
Conclusions: This study demonstrated a trend towards AWC being more
likely to develop FN events. When such events occur in this group, the
severity of them may be heightened as evidenced by longer duration of
PICU admission.