[Clinical evaluation of cefozopran for infections associated with hematological malignancies]

Cefozopran (CZOP) was used as an initial antibacterial therapy for infections in patients with hematological malignancies. CZOP was given at a daily dose of 4 g by drip intravenously to patients who were febrile over 38 degrees C and were suspected as having bacterial infections. As underlying diseases, 8 patients had acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), 9 acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML), 2 aplastic anemia (AA), 2 adult T cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL), 28 non Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), and 2 multiple myeloma (MM). Bacterial infections diagnosed were sepsis in 7 patients, suspected sepsis in 32, bronchitis in 6, pneumonia in 5 and acute peritonitis in 1. Clinical responses among 51 evaluable cases were excellent in 14, good in 15, fair in 3, poor in 19 and the overall response rate was 57%. The overall response rates for AML, ALL, AA, ATLL, NHL and MM were 56%, 63%, 100%, 50%, 50%, and 100%, respectively. Those for sepsis, suspected sepsis, bronchitis, pneumonia and acute peritonitis were 14%, 63%, 100%, 40%, and 0%, respectively. This therapy was effective in 53% (9/17) of patients whose granulocyte count remained below 500/microliter throughout the course of CZOP therapy. Six bacterial and one fungal strains were isolated from blood and sputum of six patients including five sepsis cases; two bacteria were eradicated and bacterial change was observed in one case. As side adverse effects, 10 patients had liver dysfunction, 1 anemia, 2 proteinemia, 1 indirect bilirubinemia, 2 thrombocytopenia, and 1 eosinophilia. We tried to establish a scoring system for the severities of patients with their infections, underlying diseases, treatments for the underlying disease, and granulocyte counts in order to evaluate the efficacy of CZOP more precisely. This scoring system was consisted of three grades; severe, moderate, and mild. CZOP was effective on mild and moderate grades. These results indicate that the initial antibacterial therapy by CZOP is useful for the treatment of mild and moderate grade infections complicated with hematological malignancies.