Abstract
It is well accepted that severe infections are the main cause of death in patients with acute leukemia undergoing remission induction chemotherapy. The correlation of the increasing incidence of life-threatening infections and the duration of profound neutropenia thus limits the efforts of aggressive antileukemic treatment. However, granulocytopenia seems to be the most important although not the only factor contributing to the high susceptibility of these patients to severe infections. The damage of the epidermal and mucosal barriers, deterioration of humoral defense in terms of antibody and complement production, deterioration of cellular immunity in terms of a compromised monocyte-macrophage system, as well as malnutrition and occasionally splenectomy are patient-related factors with regard to the different virulence of pathogens colonizing the patient.
For the EORTC Gnotobiotic Project Group.
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Maschmeyer, G. et al. (1990). Prevention of Infection in Acute Leukemia. In: Büchner, T., Schellong, G., Hiddemann, W., Ritter, J. (eds) Acute Leukemias II. Haematology and Blood Transfusion / Hämatologie und Bluttransfusion, vol 33. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74643-7_94
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74643-7_94
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