Incidences of Chemotherapy-induced Neutropenia and Its Association with Treatment Outcomes

The present study was aimed to evaluate the incidences of chemotherapy-induced neutropenia in patients with solid tumors in India. The patients with carcinomas of breast, lung, ovary, colon, head and neck, and liver were divided in two groups. Group 1 was for the patients who experienced grade 0-2 neutropenia and Group 2 was for patients with grade 3-4 neutropenia. Different types of chemotherapeutic agents were administered to the patients according to the routine practice of the physicians. The study revealed that the incidences of grade 3-4 neutropenia were observed in the patients with the first time exposure of the chemotherapeutic agents as well as the age factor also played an important role in the occurrence of neutropenia and febrile neutropenia. The results of this observational study indicate that the proportion of grade 0-2 neutropenia does not significantly (P-value > 0.05) differ from the hypotheses value (i.e. 50%). Thus, we observed that the proportion of incidence of grade 3-4 neutropenia is less as compare to proportion of grade 0-2 neutropenia. Significant no. of patients received pegylated GCSF while a small proportion of patients received non-pegylated GCSF. A few patients were hospitalized due to neutropenia wherein age was observed as an important factor. Due to neutropenia, age of patients, and other comorbidities, chemotherapy dose was delayed and/or reduced.