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Timing of Antibiotic Administration for Neutropenic Fever

J Oncol Pharm Pract; 2017 Jun; Butts, et al

Publish date:

Prolonged time to antibiotic administration in patients with hematologic malignancies who developed neutropenic fever was not significantly linked with negative outcomes, according to a retrospective chart review involving 244 individuals.

Participants with fever had been admitted to the hospital for a diagnosis other than febrile neutropenia between 2010 and 2014. Investigators analyzed admissions-related data. Among the results:

  • 35 events led to in-hospital mortality, intensive care unit transfer, or vasopressor requirement.
  • In-house mortality rate was 7.4%.
  • Time-to-antibiotics ranged between 10 minutes and ~24 hours.
  • Median time to antibiotics in the group experiencing negative outcomes was 120 minutes, vs 102 minutes in those who did not experience such.
  • Conditional order sets were used for empiric antibiotics in 176 events, which significantly reduced time to antibiotics from 287 to 143 minutes.

Citation:

Butts A, Bachmeier C, Dressler E, et al. Association of time to antibiotics and clinical outcomes in adult hematologic malignancy patients with febrile neutropenia. J Oncol Pharm Pract. 2017;23(4):278-283. doi:10.1177/1078155216687150.

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