Journal article
Predicting Infectious ComplicatioNs in Children with Cancer: An external validation study
GM Haeusler, KA Thursky, F Mechinaud, FE Babl, R De Abreu Lourenco, MA Slavin, R Phillips
British Journal of Cancer | NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP | Published : 2017
DOI: 10.1038/bjc.2017.154
Open access
Abstract
Background:The aim of this study was to validate the 'Predicting Infectious ComplicatioNs in Children with Cancer' (PICNICC) clinical decision rule (CDR) that predicts microbiologically documented infection (MDI) in children with cancer and fever and neutropenia (FN). We also investigated costs associated with current FN management strategies in Australia.Methods:Demographic, episode, outcome and cost data were retrospectively collected on 650 episodes of FN. We assessed the discrimination, calibration, sensitivity and specificity of the PICNICC CDR in our cohort compared with the derivation data set.Results:Using the original variable coefficients, the CDR performed poorly. After recalibrat..
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Awarded by National Science Foundation
Funding Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge Sarah Huggins and Venetia Hoe for assistance with data collection, Dr John Cheek for assistance with identification of cases and Dr Penelope Bryant for assistance with ethics application. GMH was supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council post-graduate scholarship (GNT 1056158). FEB was part funded by a grant from the Royal Children's Hospital Foundation, Melbourne, Australia, and an NHMRC Practitioner Fellowship. RP was funded by a PostDoctoral Research Fellow grant from the NIHR (UK) Grant Number PDF-10872. This study was in part supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council (project grant GNT1046727, Centre of Research Excellence for Paediatric Emergency Medicine GNT1058560), Canberra, Australia, and by the Victorian Government's Infrastructure Support Program, Melbourne, Australia.