[Amphotericin B deoxycholate prescription and adverse events in a Chilean university hospital]

Amphotericin B deoxycholate is associated with infusion-related toxicity and renal toxicity.

To evaluate medical indications of this compound in a tertiary care center, analyze adverse reactions, infusion protocols and outcome of treated patients.

Retrospective analysis of 39 treatments indicated in 33 patients during 2007, exploring indications, infusion protocols and renal protective measures, infusion-related adverse reactions, nephrotoxicity, hypokalemia and outcomes.

On average, therapy lasted 12 days (2 to 39) and reached 600 mg of accumulated dose (100 to 1950) respectively. 24-hours infusions were applied in 63.2% of prescriptions and 35.9% received a 4-6 hour infusion schedule. In addition, 36.8% received daily a saline infusion before amphotericin. Adverse reactions were observed in 40% of treatments, predominating fever (25%). Nonetheless, nephrotoxicity was infrequent (9.4%), of low magnitude, only affecting patients without previous renal disease, and not requiring dialysis. Hypokalemia developed in 21.6% of treatments. More than half of medical indications were empirical (59%), for presumed infections by either filamentous fungi or yeasts. In the subgroup with microbiological information, main indications were invasive aspergillosis (15.4% of total), systemic candidiasis (12.8%) or meningeal cryptococcosis (10.3%). A favorable response was registered in 41%, and only 48.5% of patients survived. In a multivariate analysis, only age > 60 years remained as an independent factor for developing infusion-related adverse reactions. In the same manner, a SOFA score > 3 and corticosteroids administration at the same time than amphotericin B, were independently associated to a fatal outcome.

infusion-related adverse reactions are frequent during amphotericin B deoxycholate therapy, but renal toxicity is occasionally observed. Amphotercin B was used mainly as empirical therapy in this study.