Once-daily, oral levofloxacin monotherapy for low-risk neutropenic fever in cancer patients: a pilot study in China

Cost-Effectiveness of Oral Levofloxacin Versus Amoxicillin-Clavulanate/Ciprofloxacin for Outpatient Management of Low-Risk Febrile Neutropenia in Children With Cancer in Egypt

PURPOSE

Febrile neutropenia (FN) is a common cancer complication in children. A growing body of evidence suggests that home-based care with oral antibiotics is safe and effective in carefully selected children with low-risk (LR) FN. This study aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of oral levofloxacin versus oral amoxicillin-clavulanate/ciprofloxacin in the management of LR-FN in children with cancer over a time horizon of 7 days from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) perspective.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

This is a randomized controlled study conducted at the NCI from December 2021 to September 2022, including children and adolescents age between 3 and 18 years who presented to the emergency room with LR-FN criteria with the exclusion of patients younger than 3 years and patients with Down syndrome. One hundred LR-FN episodes were enrolled in each arm. Patient demographics, microbiologic data, and outcomes were collected at different time points. A decision analytic model was created to compare the two treatment strategies. The outcome measures included quality-adjusted FN episodes, costs, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios.

RESULTS

Levofloxacin was a safe and effective treatment option for LR-FN. It proved to be the dominant strategy against amoxicillin-clavulanate/ciprofloxacin with an incremental quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) of 0.0001 and a lower cost of 62.4996 Egyptian pounds (EGPs) in the treatment of home-based LR-FN with a willingness to pay a threshold of 77,520 EGPs per QALY (1 gross domestic product/capita).

CONCLUSION

For the treatment of FN in pediatric patients with cancer, levofloxacin offers a cost-saving option with improved survival benefits over a 7-day time horizon from the NCI perspective. These findings will help health care decisions regarding the allocation of health care system resources to improve supportive care for patients with LR-FN.

Levofloxacin might be safe to use for OSCC patients

Oral squamous cell carcinoma patients are exhausted against the powerful chemotherapies, radiotherapies after the surgery, and their immune system is devastated during the process and antibiotic usage become inescapable. Although prescribing an antibiotic might be fraught for such as drug interaction and undesirable proliferation danger, studies still look for the new ideas such as antibiotic combinations that might be safe to use. The antiproliferative and apoptotic outcomes of levofloxacin with cisplatin combination as well as their single usage were examined with WST-1, Caspase-3/BCA and Annexin V methods on SCC-15 cells and a healthy cell line (MRC-5). 24 h treatment of 50 mM single levofloxacin, 50 mM single cisplatin and 50 mM levofloxacin-cisplatin combination resulted in viability rates of SCC-15 cells as 90%, 67% and 80.8%, respectively. Caspase-3 enzyme activity was enhanced 0.92-fold for single levofloxacin, 13.05-fold for single cisplatin and 9.73-fold for the combination of levofloxacin-cisplatin, the total apoptotic activity of single levofloxacin, single cisplatin and levofloxacin-cisplatin combination were observed as 4.88%, 21.14%, 16.21%, respectively on SCC-15. The apoptotic effect of cisplatin on MRC-5 has been shown to be suppressed when combined with levofloxacin. Considering the cell viability, caspase-3, and apoptotic activity results, it's conclude that the levofloxacin-cisplatin combination was also effective compared to the only cisplatin treatment on OSCC cells. The combination has shown less toxicity for healthy cells than single cisplatin treatment. Therefore, our apoptotic findings suggest that the different dosage combinations are necessary to understand the interaction for the treatment of tongue squamous cell carcinoma.

Efficacy of oral levofloxacin monotherapy against low-risk FN in patients with malignant lymphoma who received chemotherapy using the CHOP regimen

The safety and feasibility of oral fluoroquinolone monotherapy in patients with low-risk febrile neutropenia (FN) were demonstrated in recent studies. Levofloxacin (LVFX) is a commonly prescribed antibiotic; however, evidence for its efficacy against FN is limited. Therefore, in this study, we retrospectively investigated the efficacy of LVFX against low-risk FN in patients with malignant lymphoma at our institution. Treatment success was defined as recovery from fever and neutropenia without alteration of the initial regimen. We recruited 29 patients between January 2013 and December 2018. The median age of the cohort was 64 (range: 21–87) years; 13 (44.8%) were aged over 65 years. In total, 22 patients had diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Therapy was successful in 24 (82.8%) patients, whereas 5 had treatment failure requiring a change from LVFX to intravenous broad-spectrum antibacterial agents. No deaths related to FN were observed. Two patients required FN-related chemotherapy dose reduction in subsequent cycles. Although this cohort comprised many elderly patients, our study confirmed the efficacy of LVFX in patients with low-risk FN. This may improve the treatment of low-risk FN and malignant lymphoma.

Phyotochemical candidates repurposing for cancer therapy and their molecular mechanisms

Though limited success through chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery has been obtained for efficient cancer therapy for modern decades, cancers are still considered high burden to human health worldwide to date. Recently repurposing drugs are attractive with lower cost and shorter time compared to classical drug discovery, just as Metformin from Galega officinalis, originally approved for treating Type 2 diabetes by FDA, is globally valued at millions of US dollars for cancer therapy. As most previous reviews focused on FDA approved drugs and synthetic agents, current review discussed the anticancer potential of phytochemicals originally approved for treatment of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, infectious diarrhea, depression and malaria with their molecular mechanisms and efficacies and suggested future research perspectives.

Neutropénie fébrile aux urgences, stratification du risque et conditions du retour à domicile

La neutropénie fébrile (NF) est une situation fréquemment rencontrée aux urgences avec un taux de mortalité non négligeable variant de 5 à 40 %. Cette variabilité importante met en avant l’importance de stratifier le risque afin de permettre un traitement ambulatoire per os de certains patients à faible risque. En plus du MASCC (The Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer) score, d’autres outils permettent d’évaluer ce risque ou sont à l’étude dans ce but, tels que le dosage de la CRP, la procalcitonine ou encore le score CISNE. Après une prise en charge rapide aux urgences incluant l’administration sans délai d’un traitement adéquat, la poursuite de l’antibiothérapie per os à domicile est envisageable chez les patients à faible risque. La combinaison amoxicilline–acide clavulanique et ciprofloxacine est le plus souvent recommandée, mais la moxifloxacine ou la lévofloxacine en monothérapie peuvent également être utilisées pour les patients traités à domicile. Le retour à domicile permet de réduire fortement les coûts engendrés par l’hospitalisation, de diminuer le risque d’infection nosocomiale et d’améliorer la qualité de vie des patients avec NF à faible risque. Dans cette optique, plusieurs critères doivent être remplis, et une discussion avec le patient reste primordiale à la prise de décision. Parmi ceux-ci, nous retiendrons notamment un score MASCC supérieur à 21, une durée attendue de neutropénie inférieure à sept jours, l’accord du patient et de son entourage ainsi que la proximité entre le domicile et un service de soin adapté.

Fluoroquinolone resistance in bacteremic and low risk febrile neutropenic patients with cancer

BACKGROUND

The low risk febrile neutropenic patients with Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) score of more than 20 are recommended to be treated with fluoroquinolone-based oral treatment by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guideline. This recommendation relies, at least partially, on the high sensitivity of the blood culture isolates to fluoroquinolone in clinical trials conducted in Western countries. Whether this also applies in middle or low income countries like China where antibiotic resistance is becoming prevalent recently has not been evaluated.

METHODS

All the positive blood culture results from January 2010 to December 2013 in the 2 large Chinese cancer centers were reviewed. The patients were included into the study with the following criteria: febrile neutropenia, solid tumor or lymphoma, MASCC score >20, positive blood cultures within two days of the onset of fever, and detailed treatment history.

RESULTS

A total of 38 patients were included in this analysis. Two patients had polymicrobial bacteremia (Enterococcus faecalis and Flavimonas oryzihabitans). Other isolates included coagulase-negative staphylococcus, micrococcal species, viridans streptococci, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Escherichia coli. The majority of the monomicrobial isolates from these 36 patients was Escherichia coli (28 patients, 74%). Notably, in contrast to the high sensitivity to fluoroquinolone from blood culture of the low risk patients in previous reports in Westen countries, a very high drug resistance was observed: 13 out of 28 Escherichia coli isolates (46%) or 14 out of all 38 positive cultures (37%).

CONCLUSION

The results warrant further validations in prospective clinical trials in countries where antibiotic resistance is prevalent to ensure appropriate antibiotic administration.