title: Risk predictors for adverse outcome in pediatric febrile neutropenia: Single center experience from a low and middle-income country.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Risk stratification of patients with febrile neutropenia (FN) into those at "High Risk" and "Low Risk" of developing complications helps in making decisions regarding optimal treatment, such as whether to treat with oral or intravenous antibiotics, whether to treat as inpatient or outpatient and how long to treat. Risk predictors obtained from Western studies on pediatric FN are unlikely to be relevant to low middle-income country (LMICs). Our study aimed to identify clinical and laboratory parameters predictive of poor outcomes in children with chemotherapy-induced FN in a LMIC.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two hundred and fifty consecutive episodes of chemotherapy-induced FN in pediatric (<15 years) patients were analyzed prospectively. Adverse outcomes were defined as per SPOG 2003 FN study as serious medical complications (SMC) due to infection, microbiologically defined infection, and radiologically defined pneumonia (RDP). Variables found to be significant for adverse outcome (P < 0.05) on univariate analysis were selected for multivariate analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Five factors that were found to independently predict adverse outcome were (a) previously documented infection in the past 6 months, (b) presence of significant focus of infection, (c) absolute phagocyte count <100/mm3, (d) peak temperature more than 39°C in this episode of FN, and (e) fever lasting more than 5 days during this episode of FN.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Identifying the risk factors for adverse outcome in pediatric FN, which are objective and applicable across LMICs would contribute in developing guidelines for the management of FN in a resource-limited setting.
authors: Department of Medical Oncology, Division of Pediatric Oncology, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Prasad
authors: G
authors: G
authors: Chinnaswamy
authors: B
authors: B
authors: Arora
authors: T
authors: T
authors: Vora
authors: R
authors: R
authors: Hawaldar
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Banavali
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001424:Bacterial Infections / Q000382:microbiology; D001772:Blood Cell Count; D001831:Body Temperature; D064146:Chemotherapy-Induced Febrile Neutropenia / Q000097:blood / Q000150:complications* / Q000401:mortality; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003906:Developing Countries; D005260:Female; D005334:Fever / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009181:Mycoses / Q000382:microbiology; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000150:complications / Q000188:drug therapy*; D010586:Phagocytes; D011014:Pneumonia / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000382:microbiology; D011379:Prognosis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011859:Radiography; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000821:virology