Central venous line’s infections in children with cancer: Systematic Review

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Central Line-associated Bloodstream Infections (CLABSI's) burden the health care of children with cancer.

Aim: The purpose of the study was to investigate CLABSI’s in children with cancer.

Material-Method: Systematic review of the literature carried out from 2012-2022, with a search for articles using keywords in international bibliographic databases (PubMed, Scopus). The study sample includes published research articles addressing the treatment, incidence, and risk factors for CVC infections. The inclusion criteria for the articles in the study were: 1. to be written in the English language, 2. to concern children (<18 years old) with cancer who carry central venous line (CVL), 3. to concern the CLABSI’s of these children. After searching the databases a total of 12 articles were retrieved.

Results: CLABSI’s in children with cancer concern 4.5-29% of those children with CVL’s. The most common organisms seen in CLABSI’s were coagulase-negative staphylococci and Klebsiella pneumoniae and fungi. The factors related to the occurrence of CLABSI’s in children with cancer mainly concern the degree of acute illness, the degree of neutropenia, the type of catheter, the intensive administration of chemotherapy, parenteral nutrition, the length of hospital stay, the place of admission of the catheter, antibiotic use, CVL insertion day and function, number of blood transfusions and number of blood tests. Compliance of health professionals with recommended measures for CVL care remains high while compliance of parents/families is low.

Conclusions: Healthcare professionals caring for children with cancer should systematically monitor for the occurrence of CLABSI’s, take measures to limit the factors that influence their occurrence, and inform/educate parents to comply with the guidelines for care of CVL’s.