Indicators of fungal infections,

[Guest guest]

New drug treats fungal infections in cancer patients

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1001healthnewsmore01-ON.html

Ed Edelson

HealthDay

Oct. 1, 2004 01:50 PM

A new drug is effective against potentially fatal fungal infections

in cancer patients, researchers report.

These infections have emerged as a major problem for cancer patients

who are being kept alive longer by aggressive treatment.

The need for new and better antifungal drugs is another indicator of

success in the effort to make more cancers treatable and even

curable, said Dr. J. Walsh, a senior investigator at the

National Cancer Institute and lead author of a study on the new drug

that appears in the Sept. 29 issue of the New England Journal of

Medicine. advertisement

Chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants that are used to fight

cancer weaken the body's defenses against infection, Walsh explained.

Antibiotics can handle bacterial infections, but they aren't

effective against fungi, he said. So fungal infections " have emerged

in the last decade as particularly devastating complications " of

cancer treatment, Walsh said.

The journal report describes a study comparing a drug called

caspofungin, a member of a relatively new family of fungus-fighting

medications, to an older drug, amphotericin B. The drugs were tested

in more than 1,000 patients with persistent fever and low levels of

infection-fighting blood cells that are indicators of fungal

infections, Walsh said.

Caspofungin was at least as effective as the older drug against the

fungal infections, with a virtually identical success rate just above

33 percent for both treatments, the study showed. But the incidence

of adverse side effects was significantly lower for caspofungin. For

example, only 2.6 percent of the patients who got that drug had

kidney damage, compared to 11.5 percent of those given amphotericin

B, Walsh said.

Those results allow a " new molecular strategy to hit these

organisms, " Walsh said. " Our approach is to try to treat earlier

rather than later, a preventive strategy for patients at high risk. "

Patients prone to fungal infections include most people with acute

leukemia and those who develop persistent fever when they are treated

with broad-spectrum antibiotics, he said.