Daptomycin or Vancomycin in Treating Bacteria in the Blood in Patients With Neutropenia Caused By Chemotherapy

OBJECTIVES: Primary * Compare the safety of daptomycin vs vancomycin in cancer patients with chemotherapy-induced neutropenia and gram-positive bacteremia. * Compare the efficacy of these drugs, in terms of fever resolution, bacteremia resolution, inflammation indicators reduction, implanted catheter salvage, and reduced need for antifungal therapy, in these patients. OUTLINE: This is an open-label, randomized, pilot study. Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms. * Arm I: Patients receive daptomycin IV over 30 minutes once daily. * Arm II: Patients receive vancomycin IV over 60 minutes twice daily. Treatment in both arms continues for approximately 7-14 days or until microbiologic failure, unsatisfactory clinical (symptomatic) response, or fever and neutropenia is resolved (absolute neutrophil count ≥ 1,000/mm\^3 on ≥ 2 consecutive days). Patients may be removed from the study if the isolate is found to be sensitive to the original antibiotics or resistant to either of the study drugs. After completion of study therapy, patients are followed at 6 and 12 weeks. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 30 patients will be accrued for this study.