الفهرس 
Clinical History of VRE and Mechanisms of ResistanceOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Background: Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) cause severe infections among patients with malignancy and these infections are usually preceded by gastrointestinal colonization, hematological patients are at high risk.
Methods; we evaluated 100 patients with hematologic malignancy undergoing intensive chemotherapy to detect clinical relevance of VRE carriage in stool of those patients, stool cultures done at day1, day4, day 10 of chemotherapy.
Results; 20 patients (20 %) had stool culture positive for VRE at day 1, day 4, day 10 of chemotherapy; Of the 20 positive patients 12 patients were AML (60%), 3 patients were ALL (15%), 3 patients were Hodgkin lymphoma and 4 patients were non Hodgkin lymphoma; Of the 20 positive patients 9 patients (45%) had positive nose swab for MRSA while 11 patients (55%) were negative; Of the 20 positive patients 8 patients (40%) had positive skin swab for MRSA, while 12 patients (60%) were negative; of the 20 positive patients 19 patients (95%) had at least one attack of fever during neutropenia, while only one patient (5%) had no fever; patients with positive stool culture for VRE had a longer period of febrile neutropenia ranging from 5-10 days with mean±SD 8.211±1.686 compared to 2-9 days with mean ±SD 5.228±1.918 in negative patients.
Conclusions; 20% of patients with hematological malignancy were colonized with VRE and the prevalence was higher among patients with acute leukemia.