Abstract

BackgroundHealthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are a leading cause for morbidity and mortality in neutropenic patients.MethodsThe Cologne Cohort of Neutropenic Patients (CoCoNut) is an ongoing, prospective, longitudinal cohort, collecting inpatient data for analysis of epidemiology, risk factors, and outcome of neutropenic patients (at least one day of absolute neutrophil count < 500/µL) at risk for HAIs. The CoCoNut contains comprehensive data, i.e. patient characteristics, medication, chemotherapy, clinical data (e.g., diarrhea, body temperature), as well as laboratory, microbiological, virologic, and radiological results. The purpose of this cohort is to improve the knowledge on HAIs and management of anti-infective prophylaxis and therapy.ResultsTo date, the CoCoNut includes 8,176 inpatient stays from 3,354 neutropenic patients treated at the hematology/oncology department of the University Hospital of Cologne between January 2009 and December 2018. Hodgkin and Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (32%), acute leukemia (28%), and chronic leukemia (10%) were the predominant underlying diseases; comprising 843/8,176 (10%) inpatient stays with allogenic stem cell transplantation. The overall number of neutropenic days and fever days (body temperature ≥ 38 °C) was 56,824 and 25,347, respectively. Blood stream infections (occurrence of fever and positive blood culture) occurred in 1,283/8,176 (16%) inpatient stays, and the overall mortality rate was 9% (n = 716/8,176). By now, 17 peer-reviewed articles analyzing epidemiology, treatment, and outcome of HAIs were published based on data from the CoCoNut.ConclusionData extracted from the CoCoNut underlines the important role of evaluating innovative treatment strategies. Considering the remaining high infection rate for HAIs of neutropenic patients, the growing development of antimicrobial drug resistance, and the existing powerful methods for data processing (e.g., artificial intelligence), we will continue to utilizing and expanding the CoCoNut in the future.Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.

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