Personalized treatment of severe pneumonia in cancer patients.

Patients with cancer are at increased risk for sepsis as a consequence of immunosuppression. The hospital mortality remains elevated and it could be attributed to antibiotic failure because of the presence of multiresistant pathogens. Once the patient is critically ill, the use of the American Thoracic Society/Infectious Diseases Society of America classification does not seem very useful in the assessment of outcomes and the choice of antimicrobials. In critically ill patients, the characteristics of clinical response to antibiotics are usually inaccurate and occur late in the course of disease. So, the sequential evaluation of C-reactive protein-ratio is useful in the early identification of patients with antibiotic failure. To achieve safe and efficient antimicrobial therapy, we proposed an algorithm that may aid clinicians in their decision-making process.