Study on lung infections of patients with cancer under chemotherapy

Abstract

The aim of this study is to assess the prevalence of lung infections among a group of hospitalized cancer patients who received chemotherapy as well as to describe a population of these patients. The clinical data and demographic information were collected from the archived files of  in-patients  referred to  hematology center  / Baghdad Teaching Hospital / Medical City , ministry of health, Iraq  during the period  of  2018.

    This study was carried out on 250 patients with different types of cancer ,they were mostly of age group (40 - 49)  59 / 250 (23.6)% , (14-19) 49 /250 (19.6%) and (60-69) 41/ 250(16.4%) . The patients had two major types of hematological malignancies: leukemia 109/250(43.6%) and lymphoma 105/250(42%), only 36/250 (14.4%) of the patients had other types of cancer which were distributed as : 26/250( 10.4 %)  microangiopathic  and 10 /250 (4 %) Multiple myelomoa. Statistically , there was significant correlation between  age parameter and types of cancer in p<0.05  (p value : 0.000).

      Patients with positive Lung infections , as recorded on their medical reports, were not  in high frequency  and found only  in 48/250(19.2%) of the cases which were mostly shown in  patients with leukemia  28/48( 58.3 %)  .In spite of  that  there was no significant correlation  between lung infections   and type of cancer   .

The higher percentage of patients, who admitted to the women wards of Baghdad hospital, came from Baghdad city 132/250(52.8%) and diyala governorate 45/250(18%). The married women were 173 /250(69.2%) and mostly they were housewives 200/250(80%). The illiteracy was in   67/250(26.8% )  of patients.

 Low frequent lung infections  as resulted during this study could be because of  the good control of infections by giving suitable antibiotic drugs for the bacterial infections  but most of  patients with positive cases may be  infected with viruses or fungi ,which are difficult to diagnose and treat . These infections occurred due to  the immune defects induced by chemotherapy treatments  . So the greatest hope for the future is the availability of more targeted anticancer drugs that have fewer side-effects on the immune system.