Evaluation of Antibiotic Resistance in Pediatric Patients Suffering from Cancer

Introduction: The discovery of antibiotics has revolutionized the field of healthcare since many lethal infections which were previously impossible to treat are now have become much curable. However, a high reliance of the clinicians on antibiotics have led to their irrational use which has given rise to a serious problem in the form of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) a phenomenon where the microbes develop the capacity to neutralize the antimicrobial capacity of the antibiotics. In cancer patient AMR is not so frequent as compared to other patients who suffer from infectious diseases but still if cancer patients during their chemotherapy encounter the issue of AMR their cancer treatment becomes highly challenging. Objective: To evaluate the prevalence of AMR in the cancer affected pediatric patients being treated with antibiotics. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study 300 pediatric patients who received prescriptions with at least one antibiotic suffering from cancer and were treated with at least one antibiotic were included. The data was collected with the consent of their guardians from the cancer ward of The Children’s hospital and The Institute of Child Health, Lahore, Pakistan by utilizing non-probability sampling technique (convenient sampling) for the period of 6-months. Results: The study findings depicted that the children aged between 4 to 7 years got affected by various cancers and lymphoblastic leukemia (47%) was the most frequently occurring cancer. Urine, blood and mucosal swabs were used for sampling but majority of the samples were the blood (29%) samples that were used to detect the occurrence of AMR. It was observed that the study population was more susceptible to gram-negative bacteria than gram-positive bacteria. The incidence of AMR was higher in gram-negative bacteria than that of gram-positive bacteria. Among the collected samples the bacteria showed sensitivity for ciprofloxacin (23%), amikacin (21%), piperacillin (24%) and ceftazidime (23%). Considering the resistance patterns among the tested antibiotics that were prescribed to the cancer patients various penicillin antibiotics and ceftazidime showed a higher incidence of the AMR. Conclusion: The AMR is a serious problem that is encountered during the treatment of infections in the pediatric patients affected by cancer thus, the appropriate selection of antibiotics by the clinicians is a matter of serious concern so as to prevent AMR and to obtain maximum therapeutic outcomes of the chemotherapy.