is there a role for out-patient antibiotic treatment of febrile neutropenia?
Febrile neutropenia is associated with a significant risk of complications and mortality. Patients with neutropenia secondary to cytostatic chemotherapy who develop fever are normally admitted to hospital and treated promptly with broad-spectrum antibiotics. Over the last 10 years, chemotherapy for solid tumours has been shifting out of the hospital setting into the ambit of community-based oncologists, and out-patient treatment with complex multidrug protocols is becoming increasingly common. In North America high-dose protocols combined with peripheral blood stem cell transfusion are already being administered on an out-patient basis. With the increase in the numbers of out-patients undergoing multidrug chemotherapy, there has been a corresponding rise in the severity and duration of neutropenia and in the incidence of associated infections. Patients with neutropenia of short duration (<7 days) and fever are at a relatively low risk for complications, and in these circumstances, out-
