Infection

 

Cancer and its treatment reduce the ability of a child’s immune system to fight infections.  To help your child have normal relationships with other children and remain free of infection, certain precautions should be taken.

Preventing Infections

Infections can occur even if you do everything humanly possible to protect your child.  Neither you nor other children, especially brothers and sisters, should feel guilty if an infection develops.

There are steps you can take to help prevent certain infections from occurring, most of which follow simple common sense:

• Good hand washing is the most important way to prevent infections.  Your child should wash his or her hands before meals, after going to the bathroom, after blowing his or her nose, and after playing with other children.  All who care for your child (parents, doctors, nurses, and friends) should wash their hands before examining or treating your child.

• When your child’s blood counts are low, keep people away who have signs of an infection, such as fever, cough, sneezes, sore throat, or a rash.  People who must be around your child with these symptoms should wear a mask and practice good hand washing.

• Unless your treatment team asks you to, do not separate your child from brothers and sisters who are sick.  It won’t work, and it will make the other kids feel worse.  Just use common sense ideas to prevent spreading infection in the family.  Do not eat or drink after each other, and do not share eating utensils.

• If your child has an implanted catheter (Hickman, Broviac, etc) follow instructions carefully for dressing changes and care.  Always wash your hands before handling the catheter.

• While your child’s blood counts are low, give him or her only well-cooked vegetables, fruits, meats and eggs.  Avoid uncooked fresh fruits and vegetables that cannot be peeled.

• When your child’s blood counts are low, talk with your treatment team about whether or not your child should be in school.  You and your treatment team can work with the school staff to make school as safe as possible.

• Contact your treatment team at once if you find signs of an infection, even without a fever; keep a close eye on your child’s mouth, rectal area, biopsy or surgery sites, and areas of injury such as cuts in the skin or bumps.  Watch for redness, fluid drainage, heat or unusual pain at the site of a wound.

• Contact your treatment team at once if sisters, brothers, relatives, or friends are suspected or diagnosed as having chicken pox, measles, or mumps.

 

Even when reasonable steps are taken ahead of time, your child may still develop fevers or infections.  This is no one’s fault.  It is a risk of treating your child for cancer.  If fever or infection develops, your most important job is to quickly contact the treatment team for further instructions.  Keep the names and telephone numbers of your treatment team near the phone at all times, in case an emergency arises.

 

Bacterial Infection

Bacteria can cause serious infections in children with low blood counts.  There are bacteria that lives in and on our bodies that do not usually cause infection.  These bacteria can infect a child whose blood counts are low.  Children with implanted catheters or ports run a higher risk of bacterial infections; however, infections can occur in any child on cancer treatment.

 

Opportunistic Infection

There are organisms that don’t cause infections in healthy children, but that can cause serious infections in people whose immune systems are affected by cancer or its treatment.  These infections are called opportunistic infections.  They include fungal infections, such as thrush or yeast, and pneumocystsis pneumonia.  It is difficult to prevent exposure to these organisms because they are all around us.

 

Viral Infection

Viruses usually cause relatively minor infections, such as the common cold, but certain viruses can cause serious infections in the child receiving cancer treatment.  Viruses are very hard to identify and they cannot be treated with antibiotics.  Minor viral illnesses are allowed to “run their course” in a child with normal blood counts.  Because the source of infection is so hard to find in a child receiving cancer treatment, children with low blood counts and signs of infection (such as fever) may be treated with antibiotics even if a virus, rather than a bacteria, is suspected.

If your child develops any kind of a rash, talk with your treatment team right away, because this rash may be caused by a serious infection, such as chicken pox or shingles.

 

*Information provided by Florida Hospital Cancer Institute

Last update Nov. 1, 2008