[Infectious complications after transplantation of autologous hemopoietic blood cells in patients with hematological malignancies].

AIM: To characterize infectious complications arising within 30 days after transplantation of autologous hemopoietic blood cells in 42 patients with hematological malignancy (HM); to compare the course of early posttransplantation period with reference to a kind of high-dose conditioning and dose of transplanted CD34+ cells.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Autotransplantation (AT) was conducted as consolidation of a complete or partial remission in 20 patients with multiple myeloma, 14 patients with lymphogranulomatosis and lymphosarcoma, 7 patients with acute leukemia and 1 patient with rabdomyosarcoma. The program of pretransplantation conditioning corresponded to the disease form and included: melphalan, BEAM, busulphane-cyclophosphamide. The number of transplanted CD34+ cells was 1.7-20.1 (median 5.3) x l0(6) cell/kg. The transplantation was followed by selective intestinal decontamination and mycosis prophylaxis. Fever was managed with antibiotics.

RESULTS: An early period after AT ran without febrile episodes in 7 (17%) patients. This allowed physicians to avoid systemic antibiotic therapy. The infectious focus was not definitely localized in 35 patients with febrile fever in 77% cases. Clinically and bacteriologically verified infections were detected in 8 (19%) patients: 7 cases of pneumonia and 1 of bacteriemia. None of the patients died of infection early after AT. Not a single case of invasive aspergillesis was registered.

CONCLUSION: Incidence and features of infections did not vary with the above diseases and did not depend on the dose of transplanted CD34+ cells. The kind of high-dose conditioning had a significant influence on the time of granulocyte recovery, duration of agranulocytosis, duration of one febrile episode and of antibiotic therapy. The dose of transplanted CD34+ cells also influenced the time of granulocyte recovery and duration of antibiotic therapy.