Introduction: Infectious complications in pediatric oncology patients are a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Early detection of bacterial infection and prescription of antibiotics  prevented from complication such as sepsis and death. The present study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic value of IL8 compared with ESR and CRP in the detection of bacterial  infection is done.
 
Materials & methods: In this study , 48 children  with cancer (18 were females  and 30 males with a mean age 57.17 months) with high grade fever 38.5 in 2014 referring to  Afzalipur hospital in Kerman, were examine. Plasma was obtained from pediatric oncology patients at the reception time with febrile neutropenia and 48 h later. Blood samples were taken for testing IL8 , centrifuged and the serum was isolated. The samples were frozen at -70 over a period of 13 months and samples of the Keith Human  IL-8 / NAP-1 Platinum made in USA were measured using an ELISA assay. The  patients  were classified as having or not having a bacterial  infection. Serum levels of IL8, ESR, CRP were measured in both groups and Independent  sample  T-test and SPSS version 22 were used for statistical analysis.
 
Findings: From 48 children, 18 (37.5%) were females and 30 (62.5%) were males. Overall  mean age was 57.17 months. From 48 patients , 9 cases  had bacterial infection including 4 cases bacteremia, 3 cases pneumonia and 2 cases UTI and  others  had non-bacteria. Data showed that the highest amount of sensitivity and specificity marker belonging to IL8 is 100, the lowest  amount of sensitivity attribute ESR marker is 66.7 and the lowest amount of specificity attribute CRP marker is 84.6.
 
Discussion & conclusions: IL-8 is the most useful marker for the early detection of bacterial infections ,  compared with CRP , ESR and this marker can be a useful tool for evaluating patients who are at the high risk of infection and candidate for intravenous antibiotics.