Active clinical trials for "Neutropenia"

The purpose of this observational study is to investigate whether a sufficient concentration of itraconazole can influence disappearance of a fever (defeverscence) when intravenous (into the vein) itraconazole is administered for resolving unknown neutropenic fever of participants who are given itraconazole oral solution as a prophylaxis under general treatment conditions.

Invasive fungal infections are an important cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with neutropenia who are receiving chemotherapy for cancer. Early diagnosis of these infections is difficult and fever may be the only sign. A delay in treatment while a diagnosis is pursued may lead to increased morbidity and mortality. There are now several echinocandins available with similar in vitro spectrum of activity. Caspofungin is the only echinocandin Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved for empiric antifungal therapy in febrile neutropenia. Although all echinocandin antifungal agents have similar spectrum of activity, there are limited data on the use of micafungin in patients with persistent fever and neutropenia (FN). In November 2006 the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee at Brigham & Women's Hospital / Dana Farber Cancer Institute (BWH/DFCI) switched from caspofungin to micafungin as our formulary echinocandin. Given the limited clinical data on the use of micafungin as empiric antifungal therapy in patients with FN, we sought to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of micafungin, compared with caspofungin, for this indication using a sequential cohort analysis of patients treated before and after the formulary change at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

This study aims to demonstrate the safety of intracutaneous needles in pediatric cancer patients. For this, a two-year retrospective study will be carried out to determine the incidence of adverse effects related to acupuncture and the use of intracutaneous needles in the patient in active treatment and survivor.

The investigators retrospectively evaluated the efficacy of granulocyte transfusions as adjunctive treatment for severe infections in neutropenic fever unresponsive to antimicrobial therapy in hematological patients.

Febrile neutropenia (FN) is a major life-threatening treatment complication in cancer patients undergoing intensive chemotherapy. Endogenous flora is considered to be one of the main sources of infections during neutropenia. Competitive inhibition of gut mucosal colonization by pathogenic microorganisms using synbiotics could represent one of the potential options for its prevention. Synbiotics represent combination of two components: probiotics and prebiotics. Probiotics are live microorganisms, which in form of drugs or food supplements administered at a sufficient dose help to maintain health beneficial microbial balance in the digestive tract of a human or other host. Prebiotics are food ingredients nondigestible for our digestive enzymes, but can be fermented by bacteria in our bowel and this way selectively stimulate growth or activity of specific saccharolytic bacterial strains. These changes in composition of our microflora may bring benefits on host well-being and health. Based on the results of human and animal studies, probiotics probably can not only decrease the level of gut colonisation with pathogenic bacteria, but may also lead to reduction in the duration of neutropenia, accelerate the restitution of the intestinal mucosa and boost immunity. Despite a significant number of studies on probiotics still only little evidence of their safety especially in immunocompromised patients is available. To help find new options for increasing quality of healthcare for children cancer patients and also to evaluate safety of this new approach investigators designed double-blinded placebo controled multicenter study aimed to decrease the number of febrile episodes using prevention with synbiotic.

This study will evaluate the pharmacokinetics (relative bioavailability) and pharmacodynamics, after single subcutaneous application, in healthy volunteers of both sexes, between pegfilgrastim formulation, produced by Eurofarma Laboratorios S/A and Neulastim® (reference formulation), marketed by Produtos Roche Químicos e Farmacêuticos S/A. In addition to that, a pharmacodynamics comparison will be performed, through change in absolute neutrophil count in leukogram performed in the same time of pharmacokinetics analysis collection and through CD34+ cell count in peripheral blood at timepoints 0:00, 96:00 and 384:00 hours.

In patients with early-stage breast cancer, chemotherapy has substantially improved survival rates for breast cancer patients. Improvements in outcomes, however, are compromised by the considerable toxicities associated with chemotherapy, most notable being neutropenia. Neutropenia is the presence of abnormally few white blood cells, leading to increased susceptibility to infection and can require hospitalization and need for intravenous antibiotics and is sometimes fatal. Febrile neutropenia can also be associated with treatment delays and dose reductions, potentially compromising treatment efficacy. Patients can receive medication to reduce the risk of febrile neutropenia, such as Neupogen (Filgrastim) as a daily injection for 5, 7, or 10 days. Since there is genuine uncertainty amongst healthcare professionals as to which administration schedule of Neupogen is better, investigators are performing a randomized study in which patients are put into a group by chance to give participants one of three standards of Neupogen daily injection. Neupogen can cost approximately $200 per injection, so if a physician prescribes 10 days for 8 cycles of treatment this can cost $16,000 compared to a 5 day prescription which would cost half this. In addition to cost savings, many patients are not able to give themselves injections on a daily basis and require nursing resources which are utilized at high-cost. This study will use an "integrated consent model" that involves an "oral consent" rather than a written informed consenting process in order to increase the number of patients who may participate while performing a study at a lower cost. While determining the optimal treatment will improve patient comfort and acceptability, using the minimal safe duration of administration may also offer cost savings.

Granulocyte colony stimulating factors (GCSFs) stimulate the level of white blood cells, specifically neutrophils. GCSF support for patients receiving chemotherapy was shown to decrease the rate of fever during low neutrophil count (neutropenia), and in some cancer types may decrease mortality. Pegfilgrastim is a pegylated form of the GCSF named filgrastim. Pegfilgrastim is used to stimulate bone marrow to produce more neutrophils to fight infection in patients undergoing chemotherapy. It has a much longer half-life than the parent filgrastim. It is removed from the body within the neutrophils. According to the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2006 guidelines pegfilgrastim should be given 24 hours after the completion of chemotherapy i.e.before neutrophil count starts to drop. Therefore it is cleared before and after neutropenia. Comparative low quality studies suggest that deferring pegfilgrastim delivery until neutrophil counts start dropping may result in improved its efficacy. This was further tested in a few small randomized controlled trials (high quality studies, considered the "gold standard" of studies) in different settings (including first chemotherapy for lymphoma, and solid cancer) with inconsistent results. Pegfilgrastim (given 24 hours after completion of chemotherapy) is a standard part of any salvage chemotherapy for patient with refractory or relapsed aggressive lymphoma. The investigators plan a randomized controlled trial comparing the efficacy of pegfilgrastim given 72 hours (day +3) vs. 24 hours (day +1) after completion of salvage chemotherapy in patients with refractory or relapsed aggressive lymphoma. The investigators will evaluate whether that change of pegfilgrastim schedule affects the risk of fever during neutropenia, neutrophil count, length of hospitalization, mortality, and safety.

Neutropenia is very common in patients received hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, with median duration of about 14 days. Almost all neutropenia will suffer from febrile without prophylactic antibiotics. IDSA recommended fluoroquinolones as prophylaxis in neutropenia patients of high risks, while in China, major pathogens possess high resistance to fluoroquinolones. It is not clear whether prophylaxis is of benefit, nor the appropriate prophylaxis regimen. The current study will evaluate the three different regimen: No prophylaxic antibiotic Piperacillin as prophylaxis for neutropenia patients. Piperacillin has anti-pseudomonas activity. Piperacillin/tazobactam as prophylaxis for neutropenia patients. Piperacillin/tazobactam has highest susceptibility rate among common anti-pseudomonas antibiotics.

The main aim of the study is to assess the safety of Nivestim® treatment in patients treated with neutropenia-inducing chemotherapy for a malignant disease, solid tumor or a malignant hemopathy.