Objective Outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) is increasingly used to treat children at home, but studies in children are scarce. We aimed to describe the use, appropriateness and outcomes of OPAT in children. Design This was a 12-month prospective observational study. Setting The hospital-in-the-home programme of The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne. Patients All patients receiving OPAT. Interventions Data were collected including demographics, diagnosis, type of venous access and antibiotic choice. Main outcome measures Length of stay, adverse events, readmission rate and appropriateness of antibiotic use. Results 228 patients received OPAT in 251 episodes. The median age was 7.4 years (range 1 week to 21 years), with 22 patients (10%) under 1 year. The most frequent diagnoses were exacerbation of cystic fibrosis (17%), urinary tract infection (12%) and cellulitis (9%). Most patients were transferred from the ward, but 18% were transferred directly from the emergency department, the majority with skin and soft-tissue infection (66%). Venous access was most commonly peripherally inserted central catheter (29%) and peripheral cannula (29%). 309 parenteral antibiotics were prescribed, most frequently ceftriaxone (28%) and gentamicin (19%). The majority of antibiotics (72%) were prescribed appropriately. However, 6% were deemed an inappropriate choice for the indication and 26% had inappropriate dose or duration. The incidence of central line-associated bloodstream infections was 0.9%. The unplanned readmission rate was 4%, with low rates of OPAT-related adverse events. Three children (1%) had an inadequate clinical response. Conclusions OPAT is a safe and effective way of providing antibiotics to children. Despite high rates of appropriate antibiotic use, improvements can still be made. BACKGROUND

Single bolus dosing of 50 000 IU cholecalciferol achieves higher 25OHD repletion rates at 1-2 weeks of age compared with daily dosing, but repletion rates were similar by 3-4 months. There was no hypercalcaemia documented with single bolus dosing in this study.

No abstract

Chemotherapy-induced febrile neutropenia (FN) is associated with increased patient mortality and health care costs. Comorbid conditions such as liver and renal dysfunction have been linked to increased risk of FN. However, the effects of other chronic comorbid conditions on risk of FN have not been well studied. To examine the association between chronic comorbid conditions and FN in breast cancer patients, we identified incident breast cancer patients from 2000 to 2009 treated with chemotherapy at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, a large managed care organization. Patients who received primary prophylactic granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) were excluded. We assessed history of comorbid conditions prior to cancer diagnosis using ICD-9 codes and disease registries. FN events were identified in the first chemotherapy cycle using a combination of ICD-9 codes and hospital discharge diagnoses. For each comorbid condition, propensity scores that included patient characteristics and other predisposing comorbid conditions were calculated and adjusted for in Cox models to determine associations between that comorbid condition and FN. We also evaluated secondary models that additionally adjusted for cancer stage, baseline absolute neutrophil count (ANC), chemotherapy regimen, and dose reductions. A total of 7,127 breast cancer patients were included; median age was 55 years, and the majority had localized (47 %) or regional (49 %) disease at diagnosis. In the first chemotherapy cycle, 335 (4.7 %) patients developed FN. Congestive heart failure (HR = 3.0; 95 % CI: 1.3-5.9), osteoarthritis (HR = 2.0; 95 % CI: 1.4-2.8), previous cancer (HR = 3.4; 95 % CI: 1.2-7.5), and thyroid disorder (HR = 1.6; 95 % CI: 1.1-2.3) were associated with increased risk of FN. These estimates were similar to those from secondary models that also adjusted for additional cancer and treatment-related covariates. Our findings suggest that several chronic comorbid conditions may be associated with risk of FN. This information, if confirmed by others, may aid clinical decision making with respect to use of prophylactic G-CSF during chemotherapy treatment.