A trial looking at the treatment of infection during chemotherapy (ORANGE)

This trial was comparing treating infections during a course of chemotherapy at home and in hospital. The trial was supported by Cancer Research UK.

Chemotherapy can cause a drop in the number of white blood cells. This is called neutropenia . It puts you at more risk of getting an infection. If you develop an infection during your chemotherapy treatment, this can make you more ill than you normally would be. You may have to go into hospital for treatment with antibiotics .

An infection can make some people seriously ill. They may then need to have antibiotics directly into the bloodstream (intravenous antibiotics). But many people are at a low risk of becoming very unwell. They will probably have their antibiotic treatment as tablets.

This trial was looking at those people who had antibiotic tablets. Doctors were trying to find out if it was better for people to stay in hospital until the infection had completely gone. Or if it would be better to go home once you began to feel better and your temperature had come down.

The aims of the trial were to

• Find out if it was possible to identify people who were at low risk of complications
• See how well the antibiotic tablets worked
• Find out how often people who had treatment at home needed to come back into hospital