[The infectious complications of bronchial cancer]

Infection are part of the natural course of lung cancer but overall they are poorly understood. The clinical studies on which is based our knowledge often lack sufficient clinical and microbiological documentation of the infection. Nevertheless, infection is frequently caused by Gram+ pathogens, among which pneumococci remain common. When lung cancer patients are treated with chemotherapy, the resulting neutropenia predisposes further to infection; its spectrum is similar to what has been observed in other granulocytopenic patients. The frequency and severity of the infection depends mainly on the severity and duration of neutropenia. Cotrimoxazole prophylaxis in neutropenic patients with lung cancer has been found effective in several studies. As far as therapy of fever and/or infection in neutropenic lung cancer is concerned, it does not appear that it should be handled differently from febrile neutropenia in other chemotherapy treated neutropenic patients.