Urinary Infections in Children and Adults with Various Malignancies

Background: Urinary tract infection is one of the most common diseases in patients with cancer, making them at risk of developing opportunistic infections. Materials and Methods: A total of 110 samples from cancer patients admitted to Baqaei 2 Hospital in Ahvaz, including 55 chil-dren with malignancies and 55 adult patients, were included in the study. A questionnaire was completed with demographic items such as age, gender, type of malignancy, length of hospitalization, duration of chemotherapy and type of urinary tract infection along with an antibiogram susceptibility test (disc diffu-sion). Results: The mean age of the adult patients was 40.43±25.3 years, and the children 14.56±4.63 years. A total of 56 patients (50.9%) were male and 54 (49.1%) were female. The most frequent types of malignancy were: Leukemia, lung cancer, breast cancer, and colon cancer; the lowest frequency pertained to bladder, cerebellum, brain, uterine, and skin cancer. The mean minimum length of hospitalization of the patients was 1 day, and the maximum 21 days. In this study, no significant relationship was observed between the use of catheters and urinary infection, and Escherichia coli and Proteus were the most common bacterial infections in this category of patients. A significant relationship was observed between using a urinary catheter and the volume of excretion of RBC, WBC, and epithelial cells. A higher-than-normal WBC count alone does not confirm infection. Conclusion: Pathogens were the most common bacteria separated from the patients with malignancies in this research, which can have dangerous and fatal complications for the patient. It is therefore vital to monitor these patients for urinary infections.