[Antibiotic therapy of infections in cancer patients with leukopenia]

Cancer patients with leukopenia developing infections were treated with a combination antibiotic therapy consisting of sulbenicillin and amikacin with (B) or without (A) S-sulfonated gamma-globulin. Fifty patients were randomized to either A or B, respectively. Fourty-two patients in group A and 43 in group B were evaluable for responses. Twenty-eight of 42 patients (67%) in group A and 30 of 43 (70%) in group B showed a response. These results did not demonstrate that S-sulfonated gamma-globulin enhanced the effects of the combination with sulbenicillin and amikacin, although the background factors in both groups were not completely identical. Further efforts for detecting infection were required because causes of fever were thought to be fevers of unknown origin in more than three-fourths of the patients. Few patients died of infection within 2 weeks after initiation of these therapies in both groups, indicating that these therapies presumably contributed to prolongation of life span even in patients with no response.