Outpatient Management of Fever and Neutropenia in Adults Treated for Malignancy

Publication Date: February 20, 2018

Key Points

Key Points

  • Neutropenia, a decrease in the absolute neutrophil count (ANC), occurs frequently in recipients of chemotherapy.
  • The greatest risk of infection occurs in patients who experience profound, prolonged neutropenia after chemotherapy, which is most likely to occur in the period prior to engraftment during hematopoietic cell transplantation and following induction chemotherapy for acute leukemia.
  • Fever is often the only sign or symptom of infection, although clinicians should also be mindful that severely or profoundly neutropenic patients may present with suspected infection in an afebrile state, or even hypothermic.
  • The rate of major complications (e.g., hypotension, acute renal, respiratory or heart failure) in the context of neutropenic fever syndromes is approximately 25-30%, and mortality up to 11%.
    • In the setting of severe sepsis or septic shock, hospital mortality may be as high as 50%.

Triage to Initial Empirical Antibiotic Therapy

...Triage to I...

...Triage to Initial Empirical Antibacterial Thera...

...Figure 1. Tria...

...efined as a single oral temperature of ≥38.3Â...

...h an influenza-like illness (sudden on...

...Administration of empirical antibio...


 Identification of Candidates for Outpatient Management

 Id...

...dentification of Candidates for Outpatie...

...Figure 2. Identi...

...udgment should be used when selecting c...

...index or Talcott’s rules are reco...

...setting of a high prevalence of ESBL-producing...

d Patients with febrile neutropenia who are...

...ow-risk outpatients with febrile neutropenia...

...ts with fever and neutropenia who a...

...patients with FN who are undergoing out...


Table 1. Additional Specific Clinical Criteriaa That May Be Used to Exclude Oncology Patients Who Have Fever and Neutropenia from Initial Outpatient Care Even with a MASCC Score ≥21

...Additional Specific Clinical Criteriaa That Ma...

Table 2. MASCC Scoring System to Identify Patients With Cancer and Febrile Neutropenia at Low Risk of Medical Complicationsa

...C Scoring System to Identify Patie...

Table 3. The Talcott’s Classification

...e 3. The Talcott’s ClassificationHaving t...

Table 4. The Clinical Index of Stable Febrile Neutropenia (CISNE) Includes Six Explanatory Variable Associated with Serious Complicationsa

...e 4. The Clinical Index of Stable Febr...