Drug fever induced by carboplatin-based regimens: Higher incidence in a women's hospital

OBJECTIVE

Previous studies have reported low incidence of carboplatin-related drug fever in early cancer treatment cycles. This study describes and analyzes relatively higher incidence rate of carboplatin-related drug fever associated with gynecologic cancer chemotherapy in order to allay anxiety in patients and avoid unnecessary interventions.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

All gynecologic cancer cases treated with carboplatin in a women's hospital in 2017 and 2018 were retrospectively reviewed and analyzed. Data for patients who experienced carboplatin-induced drug fever and those who received the same treatment but did not experience drug fever were compared for statistical significance. Risk factors for drug fever were identified by logistic regression analysis.

RESULTS

In total, 318 females with a mean age of 52 years were included in the analysis. Drug fever was observed in 25 patients (7.86%) in 45 cycles of total 1605 carboplatin-containing infusions. Fever occurred at a median of the third (range: 1-7) cycle, starting at 10.62 h (range: 1.18-50.35 h) after carboplatin infusion, and was generally controlled within 3 days. After chemotherapy rechallenge, the mean frequency of drug fever was 2 times per patient (range: 1-4 times). There were 35/45 drug fever incidents (77.78%) that were classified as grade II; in 15/45 cases (33.33%), antibiotic treatment was immediately initiated to prevent infection. Younger age was found to be a risk factor for drug fever following carboplatin treatment (odds ratio = 0.126, 95% confidence interval: 0.025-0.628; p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

The retrospective analysis demonstrated that carboplatin-induced drug fever, which occurred on post treatment 3 days, was a type of delayed hypersensitivity reaction with an incidence rate of 7.86% in gynecologic cancer. Younger age was identified as a risk factor. Drug fever is generally tolerated by patients, who insist on chemotherapy. Knowledge of carboplatin-induced drug fever may help physicians reach timely recognition for appropriate interventions.

Clinical relevance of autophagic therapy in cancer: Investigating the current trends, challenges, and future prospects

Oncophagy (cancer-related autophagy) has a complex dual character at different stages of tumor progression. It remains an important clinical problem to unravel the reasons that propel the shift in the role of oncophagy from tumor inhibition to a protective mechanism that shields full-blown malignancy. Most treatment strategies emphasize curbing protective oncophagy while triggering the oncophagy that is lethal to tumor cells. In this review, we focus on the trends in current therapeutics as well as various challenges in clinical trials to address the oncophagic dilemma and evaluate the potential of these developing therapies. A detailed analysis of the clinical and pre-clinical scenario of the anticancer medicines highlights the various inducers and inhibitors of autophagy. The ways in which tumor stage, the microenvironment and combination drug treatment continue to play an important tactical role are discussed. Moreover, autophagy targets also play a crucial role in developing the best possible solution to this oncophagy paradox. In this review, we provide a comprehensive update on the current clinical impact of autophagy-based cancer therapeutic drugs and try to lessen the gap between translational medicine and clinical science.

Drug fever after cancer chemotherapy is most commonly observed on posttreatment days 3 and 4

BACKGROUND

This study was undertaken to analyze the characteristics of fever after cancer chemotherapy in order to reduce unnecessary medical care.

METHODS

Retrospectively, 1016 consecutive cycles of cancer chemotherapy were analyzed. Fever was defined as a temperature of ≥ 37.5 °C lasting for 1 h. Age, sex, tumor histology, the treatment regimen, the timing of fever onset, the number of days for which the fever persisted, the cause of the fever, the presence or absence of radiotherapy, and the use of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) were examined.

RESULTS

The patients included 748 males and 268 females (median age = 68, range = 29-88), of whom 949, 52, and 15 were suffering from lung cancer, malignant pleural mesothelioma, and other diseases, respectively. Fever was observed in 367 cycles (36 %), including 280 cycles (37 %) involving males and 87 cycles (32 %) involving females. Fever occurred most commonly in the first cycles and was higher than later cycles (41 vs. 30 %, p < 0.001). Fever occurred most frequently on posttreatment days 4 (8 %), 3 (7 %), and 12 (7 %), and the distribution of fever episodes exhibited two peaks on posttreatment days 3 and 4 and 10-14. Fever on posttreatment days 3 and 4 was most commonly observed in patients treated with gemcitabine (20 %) or docetaxel (18 %). The causes of fever included infection (47 %; including febrile neutropenia [24 %]), adverse drug effects (24 %), unknown causes (19 %), and tumors (7 %). Radiotherapy led to a significant increase in the frequency of fever (46 vs. 34 %, p < 0.001). Thirty-three percent of patients received G-CSF, and the incidence ratios of fever in patients who received G-CSF were higher than those who did not receive G-CSF (44 vs. 31 %, p < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

The febrile episodes that occurred on posttreatment days 3 and 4 were considered to represent adverse drug reactions after cancer chemotherapy. Physicians should be aware of this feature of chemotherapy-associated fever and avoid unnecessary examination and treatments including prescribing antibiotics.