In my more than 35 years as an infectious disease specialist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, I have helped to diagnose and treat bacterial, fungal, viral, and parasitic infections in thousands of patients with cancer.
Infections are common and often serious in people being treated for cancer because the agents used to target the cancer cells — chemotherapy, bone marrow transplantation, other therapies — also damage healthy cells and weaken the immune system overall. I also diagnose and treat naturally occurring disruptions of the immune system such as those that occur with HIV infections.
