Effect of Combination Therapy of Ceftazidime/Amikacin and Monotherapy with Imipenem on the Treatment of Fever and Neutropenia in Patients with Cancers

AIM: This study aimed to compare the effect of Imipenem monotherapy and combination therapy with Ceftazidime/Amikacin in febrile episodes in neutropenic cancer patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this double-blind randomised trial, 122 adult patients with cancer, neutropenia and fever who were treated by chemotherapy were gathered by simple sampling method and were divided randomly to two equal Imipenem (IP) and Ceftazidime/Amikacin (CA) groups. 500 mg of Imipenem was administered every 6 hours IP group and 2 g of Ceftazidimeplus 15 mg/kg/day in 2 equally divided doses of Amikacin was administered in the CA group. The treatment was continued for 72 hours in both groups. Data were analysed with SPSS19. RESULTS: There was a significant difference between the mean temperatures of three days in each group (P < 0.001). There was no significant difference between the two groups regarding microbial response to antibiotics. There was no significant difference between 19 patients of IP and 13 patients of CA groups regarding bacteriologically documented infection (P = 0.3). CONCLUSION: Unmodified therapy by Imipenem is as effective as combinational therapy by Ceftazidime/Amikacin in clinically and bacteriologically documented infection.