2017 Volume 43 Issue 10 Pages 577-584
Febrile neutropenia (FN) is an oncologic emergency requiring immediate treatment. Outpatients who develop a fever are often instructed to take previously prescribed oral antibiotics without any initial assessment. Oral moxifloxacin hydrochloride (MFLX) is efficacious and safe in low-risk febrile neutropenic patients, but the use of MFLX according to the patients' discretion has not yet been established. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness and safety of the treatment technique during adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer. The 229 patients received 839 administrations of chemotherapy during the study period and 82 patients (35.8％) had a total of 128 febrile episodes (15.3％). The rate of visits due to heat generation in the pre-prescription group was significantly lower than that in the non pre-prescription group (33/99 [33.3％] vs 24/29 [82.8％], P < 0.001, by the episode). Our results suggest that the strategy might be an effective option for the management of FN of outpatients by reducing the number of hospital visits required.
