الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Serious infections now occur more commonly in patients whose defenses have in some ways been compromised by an underlying disorder or its treatment. Such patients may develop not only those infections to which all of us are prone but also opportunistic infections. The source of those infections may be endogenous from the gastrointestinal tract flora or other sites in the same patient i.e. skin, nose, oropharyn« or acquired from hospital related infections. Host infections originating from the patients own oropharyngo-intestinal tract are caused by aerobic Grain negative bacilli and Gram positive cocci. Hodgkin’s disease and non Hodgkin lymphomas are frequently associated with impairment of immune functions. Opportunistic infections have been well described in patients undergoing intensive chemotherapy, all patients with acute leukaemia who received chemotherapy became granulQcytopenic. The chemotherapeutic drugs used in treatment of acute leukaemia decrease host resistance to microbial invasion by impairment of cellular and humoral immune responses. There is a relationship between low circulating neutrophil count and the occurrence of life threatening sepsis during cancer therapy. |