Improving diagnostic stewardship of Streptococcus pneumoniae urine antigen testing among cancer patients

Abstract

We evaluated the utility of nearly twelve thousand Streptococcus pneumoniae urine antigen tests at a tertiary cancer center. Overall, test positivity rate was low. Testing during hospital days 0–2 yielded a greater positivity rate than testing at hospital 3 or beyond (1.2% vs 0.89%, P = .15). This trend was preserved among patients with neutropenia (1.2% vs 0.68%; P = .30) and those who had received cellular therapy within the preceding year (1.3% vs 0.34%; P = .11).