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 groupof hospitalized cancer patients who received chemotherapy as well as to describe apopulation of these patients. The clinical data and demographic information werecollected from the archived files of in-patients referred to hematology center /Baghdad Teaching Hospital / Medical City , ministry of health, Iraq during theperiod of 2018.This study was carried out on 250 patients with different types of cancer ,theywere 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 hematologicalmalignancies: 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 inp<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 whichwere mostly shown in patients with leukemia 28/48( 58.3 %) .In spite of thatthere was no significant correlation between lung infections and type of cancer .The higher percentage of patients, who admitted to the women wards of Baghdadhospital, came from Baghdad city 132/250(52.8%) and diyala governorate45/250(18%). The married women were 173 /250(69.2%) and mostly they werehousewives 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 thegood control of infections by giving suitable antibiotic drugs for the bacterialinfections but most of patients with positive cases may be infected with viruses orfungi ,which are difficult to diagnose and treat . These infections occurred due tothe immune defects induced by chemotherapy treatments . So the greatest hope forthe future is the availability of more targeted anticancer drugs that have fewer sideeffectson the immune system.