AmBisome: Marketed to treat fever of unknown origin

National Cancer Institute (Bethesda, Md.) researchers and colleagues published in The New England Journal of Medicine a 687-patient comparison of AmBisome and conventional amphotericin B to treat and prevent fungal infections empirically in patients with fever and neutropenia. The two drugs gave similar successful treatment rates (50 percent versus 49 percent) and outcome with respect to survival (93 percent versus 90 percent), resolution of fever (both 58 percent) and discontinuation due to toxic effects or lack of efficacy (14 percent versus 19 percent).

However, AmBisome treatment led to fewer breakthrough fungal infections (3.2 percent versus 7.8 percent, p=0.009) and fewer infusion-related fever events (17 percent versus 44 percent), chills or rigors (18 percent versus 54 percent) and nephrotoxic effects (19 percent versus 34 percent, p<0.001). ...