ABSTRACT
Patients suffering from neoplastic diseases, particularly hematological malignancies, are immunocompromised hosts. As such, bacterial infections are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in this population. One can expect a characteristic spectrum of bacteria in certain diseases, for example gram-positive cocci (GPC) and gram-negative rods (GNR) in patients with febrile neutropenia, and polymicrobial flora in patients with biliary sepsis due to carcinoma obstructing the biliary tree. In addition, physicians can encounter infections with specific and uncommon bacteria that are characteristic of certain diseases: for example, group G streptococcal bacteremia is associated with an underlying malignancy,1 and patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) previously treated with purine analogs and steroids are prone to infection by Listeria monocytogenes.2
