Table 5.5, GRADE profile: Is primary prophylaxis with G(M)-CSF more effective than primary prophylaxis with antibiotics at improving outcomes for patients at risk of neutropenic sepsis - Neutropenic Sepsis: Prevention and Management of Neutropenic Sepsis in Cancer Patients

Warning: The NCBI web site requires JavaScript to function. more...

Quality assessment							No of patients		Effect		Quality
No of studies	Design	Limitations	Inconsistency	Indirectness	Imprecision	Other considerations	G-CSF	Antibiotics	Relative (95% CI)	Absolute	Quality
Mortality
1	randomised trials	serious¹	no serious inconsistency	no serious indirectness	very serious²^,³	none	7/78 (9%)	5/77 (6.5%)	RR 1.42 (0.43 to 4.68)	27 more per 1000 (from 37 fewer to 239 more)	VERY LOW
Febrile neutropenia
1	randomised trials	serious¹	no serious inconsistency	no serious indirectness	very serious²^,³	none	7/18 (38.9%)	7/22 (31.8%)	RR 1.22 (0.53 to 2.84)	70 more per 1000 (from 150 fewer to 585 more)	VERY LOW
Quality of life - not reported
0	-	-	-	-	-	none	-	-	-	-
Antibiotic resistance - not reported
0	-	-	-	-	-	none	-	-	-	-
Length of hospital stay (Better indicated by lower values)
1	randomised trials	serious¹	no serious inconsistency	no serious indirectness	serious²	none	Median 6 days (range 5 to 9)	Median 7 days (range 5 to 10)	-	median 1 day less with G-CSF	LOW

1: No blinding or unclear allocation concealment
2: Very low number of events
3: 95% confidence interval around the pooled estimate of effect includes both no effect and appreciable benefit or appreciable harm

Neutropenic Sepsis: Prevention and Management of Neutropenic Sepsis in Cancer Patients.

NICE Clinical Guidelines, No. 151.

National Collaborating Centre for Cancer (UK).

NCBI Bookshelf. A service of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.