Objective: To determine the incidence of febrile neutropenia among cancer patients receiving chemotherapy in the Oncology Department of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi.
Material and methods: An observational study through convenient sampling technique was conducted from 1st April 2016 to Mar 30, 2017 at Department of Oncology, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi after obtaining approval from Ethical Review Committee. We included 316 cancer patients, undergoing different chemotherapy regimens for different types of tumors. Number and percentage of patients who develop febrile neutropenia and type of chemotherapy which was associated with febrile neutropenia were recorded. Febrile neutropenia defined as a single oral temperature of >38.3 ºC with absolute neutrophil count of less than 500.Patients who were known cases of diabetes, heart disease, or psychiatric illness, were excluded. Demographic variables such as age, weight, height, gender, type of cancer, chemotherapy protocol, number of days of chemotherapy, chemotherapy setting, haemoglobin, total leukocyte count, neutrophils, monocytes, platelets, were recorded. SPSS version 20.0 was used for data analysis.
Results: In the total of 316 cancer patients divided into 12 groups depending upon chemotherapeutic regimen, the overall incidence of febrile neutropenia was 164 (52%).The mean age in all groups was 42.11±14.09 years. The mean total leukocyte count recorded was 2444.46 ± 1655.35 mm3. Mean of neutrophils was 33.96 ± 21.65 %. The mean absolute neutrophil count recorded was 1058.12 ± 1237.01 mm3. The mean chemotherapy days were 10.72 ± 3.23.
Conclusion: Our study showed that among 316 of the patients on chemotherapy, half of the patients developed febrile neutropenia; this is in contrast to other studies where this frequency is 10-20%.
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2022: 6.012
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