[Clinical approach to infection in patients with hematologic malignancy]

Abstract

Patients with hematologic malignancy are susceptible to infection because of the disease process and its treatment. Profoundly granulocytopenic patients are at increased risk of developing Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteremia, often with a fatal outcome. Therapy with one or two anti-pseudomonal beta-lactam antibiotics and an aminoglycoside in combination that were effective in vitro against the infecting organism proved to be superior, by one-week survival, to therapy with either one in vitro effective beta-lactam or aminoglycoside or inadequate drugs. On the other hand, treatment with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor had no significant association with longer survival, although a favorable outcome was well correlated with an increase in the granulocyte count during therapy. An active mycobacteriosis was documented in 2% of all patients with hematologic malignancy. Dissemination occurred in half of them. The prognosis of tuberculosis was depended mainly on early diagnosis and treatment, while that for the atypical variety was largely influenced by the underlying disease. The frequency of deep fungal infection in patients with acute leukemia at autopsy increased progressively from 10% in 1970-1974 to 38% in 1983-1986, but it decreased somewhat to 29% in 1987-1989 after the introduction of empiric amphotericin B therapy in 1986. Early empiric antifungal therapy should therefore be started in granulocytopenic patients with fever refractory to antibacterial therapy, because of unreliability of the current serodiagnosis. A total protective isolation for patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation (BMT) was associated with a reduced incidence of pneumonia, especially due to Aspergillus, and to a lesser extent, bacteremia. Cytomegalovirus pneumonia complicating BMT continues to have a poor prognosis, although the frequency has gradually been decreasing with the introduction of effective preventive measures. An early diagnosis and treatment as well as preventive measures is thus necessary for infection control in patients with hematologic malignancy.