Antifungal prophylaxis with caspofungin led to a lower incidence of invasive fungal disease, compared with fluconazole, in children and young adults with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to new study findings.
National Institutes of Health/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
The results suggest caspofungin may be an appropriate prophylactic strategy to prevent invasive fungal disease in younger patients with newly diagnosed AML, reported Brian T. Fisher, DO, of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and colleagues. The study was published in JAMA.
The randomized, open-label study included 517 children, adolescents, and young adults with de novo, relapsed, or secondary AML. Study patients received treatment in 115 centers throughout United States and Canada. The median age of patients in the study was 9 years (range, 0-26 years); 56% were male and approximately 69% were white.
Study subjects were randomly assigned to receive antifungal prophylaxis with 70 mg/m2 (maximum dose 70 mg/day) of intravenous caspofungin on day 1, followed by 50 mg/m2 per day (maximum dose 50 mg/day) thereafter, or age-dosed intravenous or oral fluconazole.
Prophylactic therapy was initiated 24-72 hours after the completion of each chemotherapy cycle, and was maintained until the end of the neutropenic period following each cycle.
At 5-month follow-up, the cumulative incidence rate of probable or proven invasive fungal disease was 3.1% (95% confidence interval, 1.3%-7.0%) in the caspofungin arm, compared with 7.2% (95% CI, 4.4%-11.8%) in the fluconazole arm (overall P = .03).
In addition, the 5-month cumulative incidence rate of probable or proven invasive aspergillosis infection was 0.5% (95%CI, 0.1%-3.5%) in patients who received caspofungin, compared with 3.1% (95% CI, 1.4%-6.9%) in patients who received fluconazole (overall P = .046).
“No statistically significant differences in empirical antifungal therapy or 2-year overall survival were observed,” they reported.
With respect to safety, the most frequently reported adverse events were hypokalemia (22 events in the caspofungin arm vs. 13 in the fluconazole arm), respiratory failure (6 events in the caspofungin arm vs. 9 in the fluconazole arm), and elevated alanine transaminase (4 events in the caspofungin arm vs. 8 in the fluconazole arm).
The researchers acknowledged a key limitation of the study was the short duration of follow-up. As a result, the precision of some comparative measures may have been reduced.
The National Cancer Institute funded the study. The authors reported financial affiliations with Astellas, Celgene, Leadiant Biosciences, Merck, Nabriva Therapeutics, Novartis, Pfizer, Shire, and T2 Biosystems.
SOURCE: Fisher BT et al. JAMA. 2019;322(17):1673-81.