A common cause of death and then even more common cause of morbidity a wide variety of neoplasms.
Many deaths from acute leukemia and about 50% of the deaths from lymphoma are caused by infections.
The use of intensive chemotherapy for solid malignancies has increased a likelihood of patients to die as a result of the infection.
Neoplasms increased risk of infections by damaging integrity of the mucosa and skin by obstructing normally open orifices such as bronchial tubes, ureters or biliary ducts.
Malignancies may int2242upt lymph node and lymph node drainage integrity by surgery or radiation.
Reticuloendothelial clearance may be impaired in patients with functional asplenia or following splenectomy.
Neutropenia, and immunosuppression associated with chemotherapy and radiation increase.
Impaired barriers to infection may be associated with surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy.
Imaging modalities available for diagnosing infection include radiographs, CT scans, MRIs, and ultrasound.
Unfortunately, radiological techniques require anatomical changes to detect infectious and inflammatory foci, which are not detected at an early stage because of the lack of substantial anatomical changes at that time.
Radiological techniques are limited benefit in making a diagnosis of infection in the presence of neutropenia when inflammatory infiltrates or minimal or absent.
Radiological techniques have difficulty discriminate in between active infections or inflammatory lesions firm residual anatomic changes from previous treatments, or metastates with obstructive findings.
Scintigraphic imaging allows identification infectious and inflammatory foci in all parts of the body, based on functional tissue changes.
Scintigraphic imaging compared to CT and MRI imaging allows whole body imaging.