Abstract
Introduction: The mortality related to febrile neutropenia may be very high in certain populations. The aim of the present study was to identify early predictors of mortality in a cohort of oncologic patients with febrile neutropenia admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU).
Methods: Retrospective observational study in patients with febrile neutropenia older than 18 years admitted to the intensive care unit of the “Solon Espinosa Ayala” Oncology Hospital in Quito. Sociodemographic, clinical, laboratory and microbiological variables were collected from clinical records at admission. With these variables, predictive mortality models were constructed usingclogistic regression analysis to identify predictors of death.
Results: There were 107 episodes of febrile neutropenia, 53.3 % had severe neutropenia, and in 29.9 % of the cases neutropenia lasted more than 10 days. The prevalence of bacteremia was 34.6 %. 34.6 % of the patients died (n = 37), of which 22.4 % died in the ICU. A higher age of 40 years, procalcitonin values higher than 4 ng / ml, high APACHE II scores and the need for ventilatory support were associated with an increased risk of death in the multivariate model; The predictive value in the internal validation had an accuracy of 81.3 %; Sensitivity of 63.6 %; Specificity of 90.5 %; Positive predictive value of 77.8 %; Negative predictive value of 82.6 %; Area under the curve of 0.87.
Conclusion: Factors such as age greater than 40 years, procalcitonin at admission > 4 ug/ml, APACHE II and requirement of mechanical ventilation support are associated with a higher risk of death.