Pulmonary Infections Complicating Hematological Disorders

Corrado Girmenia; Pietro Martino

doi:10.1055/s-2005-922029

Seminars in Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Table of Contents

Semin Respir Crit Care Med 2005; 26(5): 445-457
DOI: 10.1055/s-2005-922029

Pulmonary Infections Complicating Hematological Disorders

Corrado Girmenia¹ , Pietro Martino¹

¹Dipartimento di Biotecnologie Cellulari ed Ematologia, University “La Sapienza,” Rome, Italy

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Pulmonary infections are second in importance only to septicemia as a cause of infectious morbidity and mortality in patients with hematological disorders. The differential diagnosis of the pneumonitis syndrome includes not only infection but also a multitude of noninfectious causes. In addition, the diagnosis may be difficult, owing to the subtlety of the clinical signs as a consequence of the impaired inflammatory response. Radiographic findings are often nonspecific, and invasive procedures and microbiological exams are required to establish the cause of pulmonary disease and to choose a specific therapy. However, invasive diagnostic procedures are often precluded by the poor general conditions and (particularly in acute leukemia patients) by concurrent thrombocytopenia. The approach to all infectious complications, including those of the lower respiratory tract, in immunocompromised patients with hematological diseases, is based on aggressive prevention strategies and the empirical administration of broad-spectrum antimicrobials eventually followed by a clinically or microbiologically guided treatment modification. With regard to the antimicrobial treatment, given the variety of infectious and noninfectious causes of pulmonary infiltrates in patients with hematological diseases, the diversity of the underlying immunocompromised state, and the spectrum of clinical findings, no single general therapeutic algorithm can be applied.

KEYWORDS

Pneumonia - neutropenia - leukemia - “hematopoietic stem cell transplant”

Full Text

References

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Pietro MartinoM.D.

Dipartimento di Biotecnologie Cellulari ed Ematologia, University “La Sapienza”

Via Benevento 6, 00161, Rome, Italy

Email: martino@bce.med.uniroma1.it