ABSTRACT
Infections in patients with gynecological malignancies are frequent and a major cause of death and prolonged hospitalization. The patient with cancer is a compromised host and has increased susceptibility to infections due to the tumor itself and also due to therapeutic modalities such as extensive surgical procedures, radiation, and cytotoxic chemotherapy. Infections related to chemotherapy per se are less pronounced than those seen in patients with leukemia, lymphoma, and bone marrow transplantation who have prolonged neutropenia ranging from 1 to 4 weeks. Neutropenia in gynecological malignancy patients lasts approximately for 3 days and therefore infections related to febrile neutropenia are limited. In fact, chemotherapy did not increase the risk of wound complications in this population despite efforts to begin chemotherapy as soon as possible postcytoreductive surgery in one analysis performed in 1992.
