The Role of Prophylactic Antibiotics on ANC Value and Fever Duration in Cancer Patients with Post-Chemotherapy Neutropenia Fever

Chemotherapy has immunosuppressive side effects, one of which is neutropenia. In neutropenia, fever often occurs as a manifestation of infection. Antibiotics are given in neutropenia condition to prevent complication of infection. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of different prophylactic antibiotics on the increase of Absolute Neutrophil Count (ANC), duration of fever, and degree of improvement in ANC values in cancer patients with fever neutropenia. This study was an observational with quantitative descriptive analyses. Data were taken from medical records for the period January 2015 to December 2016. The sample size that met the inclusion criteria was 45 patients including 15 using ceftriaxone-gentamicin, 8 using ceftriaxone, 16 using ceftazidime-ciprofloxacin, and 6 using ceftazidime. The results showed a significant difference in the increase ANC values for different antibiotics (p = 0.001). However, the administration of different antibiotics did not provide a significant difference in the mean duration of fever (p = 0.341). Administration of different antibiotics was known to give a degree of improvement in the same ANC value (p = 0.711). The conclusion of this study was that the administration of different antibiotics in post-chemotherapy neutropenia fever patients has a significant influence on the ANC value where the type of antibiotic that has the highest influence is a combination of ceftazidime-ciprofloxacin.