Severe sepsis, a costly complication in hospitalized cancer patients, causes roughly one in ten cancer deaths each year in the USA, according to an article published in the July issue of Critical Care.

Dr Mark Williams and his colleagues used data from six US states to analyze all hospitalizations in 1999 and estimate the nationwide incidence and mortality associated with severe sepsis in cancer patients.

Almost 5 percent of cancer patients who were hospitalized in the six-state database were found to have severe sepsis. When extrapolated to the rest of the USA, this corresponds to around 126,000 cases every year.

The data also showed that hospitalized patients with cancer and severe sepsis were more than five times more likely to die than cancer patients who did not develop severe sepsis--- with morality rates of 37.8 percent and 7.2 percent, respectively. Based on the study data, around 46,700 cancer patients die from sepsis every year.

“Our study demonstrates the devastating complication of severe infections in cancer patients. Improvement in infection control, such as early appropriate antibiotics, in this population could have a significant impact on overall cancer survival,” said Williams.

Both cancer treatments and the presence of the disease itself can cause patients with cancer to become immunosuppressed. In general, cancer patients are nearly four times more likely to be hospitalized with severe sepsis than people without cancer. Patients suffering from lymphoma, leukemia or other blood cancers are even more susceptible to severe sepsis.