Investigation of infection in the neutropenic patient with fever

HANDOC: A Handy Score to Determine the Need for Echocardiography in Non-β-Hemolytic Streptococcal Bacteremia

Background

Non-β-hemolytic streptococci (NBHS) can cause infective endocarditis (IE). Echocardiography is used to diagnose IE, but it is not known which patients with NBHS bacteremia should undergo echocardiography.

Method

Medical records of patients with NBHS bacteremia in southern Sweden from 2012 to 2014 were studied retrospectively. The patients were divided into 2 cohorts. In the first, correlations between the reported data and IE were studied. These variables were used to construct the HANDOC score, which was then validated in the second cohort.

Results

Three hundred thirty-nine patients with NBHS bacteremia were included in the first cohort, of whom 26 fulfilled the criteria for IE. Several factors differed significantly between the patients with IE and those without. Among these variables, the presence of Heart murmur or valve disease; Aetiology with the groups of Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus bovis, Streptococcus sanguinis, or Streptococcus anginosus; Number of positive blood cultures ≥2; Duration of symptoms of 7 days or more; Only 1 species growing in blood cultures; and Community-acquired infection were chosen to form the HANDOC score. With a cutoff between 2 and 3 points, HANDOC had a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 73% in the first cohort. When tested in the validation cohort (n = 399), the sensitivity was 100% and the specificity 76%.

Conclusions

HANDOC can be used in to identify patients with NBHS bacteremia who have a risk of IE so low that echocardiography can be omitted; therefore, its implementation might reduce the use of echocardiography.

Infectious morbidity in critically ill patients with cancer

Infection frequently complicates the course of cancer treatment and often adversely affects the outcome. Patients have a greater tendency for acquiring infections caused by opportunistic microorganisms. Agents with low virulence potential may lead to invasive and often life-threatening infections because of altered host immune function. The immune dysfunction may be caused by the underlying malignancy, by antineoplastic chemotherapy, or by invasive procedures during supportive care.