Epidemiology and clinical features of bloodstream infections in hematology wards: one year experience at the catholic blood and marrow transplantation center

• Published in: Infection & chemotherapy 2013, 45(1), , pp.51-61
• Main Authors: Kwon, Jae-Cheol, Kim, Si-Hyun, Choi, Jae-Ki, Cho, Sung-Yeon, Park, Yeon-Joon, Park, Sun Hee, Choi, Su-Mi, Lee, Dong-Gun, Choi, Jung-Hyun, Yoo, Jin-Hong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acute myeloid leukemia; Enterococcus faecium; Original; 내과학
• ISSN: 2093-2340; 2092-6448
• DOI: 10.3947/ic.2013.45.1.51

The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical features and epidemiology of bloodstream infections (BSIs) in 2 distinctive hematological wards of the Catholic Blood and Marrow Transplantation (BMT) center. We retrospectively reviewed the medical data of patients who developed BSIs from June 2009 to May 2010 in 2 hematologic wards at the Catholic BMT center. Ward A is a 44-bed unit mainly conducting conventional high dose chemotherapy and ward B is a 23-bed unit exclusively conducting BMT. Overall, 222 BSI episodes were developed from 159 patients. Acute myeloid leukemia in ward A and multiple myeloma in ward B were more frequent than in ward B and A, respectively. Sex, age, presence of neutropenia, shock, Pitt bacteremia score, type of central catheter, level of C-reactive protein, duration of admission days, type of BSI, overall mortality and distribution of organisms were not different between the 2 wards. There were 202 monomicrobial and 20 polymicrobial BSI episodes, including 2 fungemia episodes. The incidence rate of overall BSIs per 1,000 patient-days was higher in ward A than in ward B (incidence rate ratio 2.88, 95% confidence interval 1.97-4.22, P