A prospective study of febrile episodes in inpatient children on chemotherapy.

In 538 febrile episodes in 188 children enrolled prospectively, 62% of children were neutropenic and 86% had infection-related fever. Respiratory infection was the commonest febrile cause (60%). Bacteremia occurred more often in neutropenic than non-neutropenic episodes (20% vs. 3%) and was accompanied significantly more with shiver, lassitude, and decreased dorsum pedis pulse. About 65% of blood isolates were Gram-negative bacilli, which differs from the observations in western countries.