View clinical trials related to Pneumocystis.
Filter by:Corticosteroids exposure is a common risk factor for invasive fungal infections. Systemic corticosteroid therapy treats several medical conditions, including rejection in solid organ transplant recipients, malignancy, and autoimmune or inflammatory diseases. Corticosteroid exposure is a well-known risk factor for developing PJP. Still, it remains unclear how prior corticosteroid exposure influences the presentation, severity, and mortality of opportunistic fungal infections. The investigators aim to prospectively characterize the corticosteroid use as a dose response to inform risk of invasive fungal infections.
Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PJP) is an opportunistic fungal infection of immunocompromised hosts which causes in significant morbidity and mortality. The current standard of care, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) at a dose of 15-20 mg/kg/day of TMP, is associated with serious adverse events, including hypersensitivity reactions, drug-induced liver injury, cytopenia, and renal failure occurring among 20-60% of patients. The frequency of adverse events increases in a dose dependent manner and commonly limits the use of TMP-SMX. Reduced treatment doses of TMP-SMX for PJP reduced ADEs without mortality differences in a recent meta-analysis of observational studies. We therefore propose a Phase III randomized, placebo-controlled trial to directly compare the efficacy and safety of low dose (10 mg/kg/day of TMP) compared to the standard-of-care (15 mg/kg/day) among patients with PJP for the primary outcome of death, new mechanical ventilation, and change of treatment.
The purpose of this pivotal study is to determine if intravenous Rezafungin is efficacious and safe in the prevention of invasive fungal diseases when compared to the standard antimicrobial regimen.
The treatment guidelines for Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) suggest adding 40mg of prednisone (or its equivalent in methylprednisolone) twice per day on days 1 through 5, 40 mg days 6 through 10, and 20 mg daily on days 11 through 21 in subjects with moderate and serious PCP. Steroids have shown to improve clinical outcome and reduction in mortality in HIV-infected patients the effectiveness of adjuvant steroid treatment for PCP has been observed if it starts within the first 24 to 48 hours. Possibly, there is a long-term benefit with their use in the recovery of function and limitation of chronic pulmonary complications; recently, benefits have been observed in decreasing the incidence of Inflammatory Immune Reconstitution Syndrome (IRIS) due to Mycobacterium tuberculosis. On the other hand, steroids could increase the morbidity related to adverse reactions as well as paradoxical worsening of associated herpes virus infection, which are attributed to IRIS or as a result of immunosuppression generated by their use. Recently, it has been shown that gradually steroids withdrawal is not necessary in patients who have received less than 21 days of treatment. This non-inferiority work aims to confirm the null hypothesis that a reduced steroid scheme in patients with moderate PCP (8 days) and severe pneumonia (14 days) is sufficient to limit long-term ventilatory complications and acute postinflammatory syndrome, compared to the conventional 21-day scheme. It also has been hypothesized that it could be associated with fewer cases of IRIS due to herpes virus type 1,2,3 and 8.
Incidence and morbi-mortality of Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) are increasing. Early and fast diagnosis and treatment improve PCP prognosis. Biological diagnosis is based on the detection of Pneumocystis jirovecii, mainly by PCR, in broncho-alveolar lavage (BAL) obtained from bronchial fibroscopy. However this invasive exam is not always possible in emergency in suspected patient and others non invasive (sputa) and/or non-targeted (bronchial aspiration) are sent to the laboratory (25% of cases, data from the Grenoble University Hospital). Diagnosis performances of these non invasive/non-targeted samples are not clearly established. In this study, the investigators aimed to establish the diagnosis value of non-invasive and/or non-targeted respiratory samples (oral fluids, sputa and bronchial aspiration) for the PCP diagnosis, compared to the gold-standard (Pneumocystis PCR on BAL, beta-D-glucans testing on serum and radio-clinical records).
Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia (PcP) increased in non HIV immunocompromised patients. Mortality remains high for those patients with comorbidities (50% for patients with the most severe Pneumocystis pneumonia). Physiopathology, characteristics and outcome of PcP in non-HIV patients remains different from those in HIV patients. Steroids in HIV patients with PcP has been associated with decreased mortality but in non-HIV patients, adjunctive steroids remains controversy. Some retrospective studies in that field did not find any beneficial effects of steroids ((1mg/kg/jour d'Equivalent Prednisone (EP)). However, all the studies were retrospective, non randomised studies including various underlying disease and severity of PcP was variable. Moreover, dosage and delay of steroids were variable leading difficult to interpret all the results. The investigators want to demonstrate the beneficial effect of steroid during PcP in non-HiV immunocompromised patients with a double blinded randomised clinical trials comparing adjunctive steroids to placebo.
Despite the availability of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), lung diseases remain a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in those with HIV infection. There have been no large-scale studies detailing pulmonary complications in the HAART era. Substantial gaps exist in our knowledge of the spectrum and pathogenesis of pulmonary disorders in this population, particularly in women and minorities whose numbers with HIV or AIDS have increased. The Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS) and the Women's Interagency Health Study (WIHS) are prospective, multi-center cohorts that follow approximately 5000 HIV+ subjects and HIV- controls. Although pulmonary disease has not been an area of focus, these established cohorts provide a unique opportunity to systematically study pulmonary complications of HIV infection. Emphysema is of particular interest in the current HIV era because it is likely to increase as this population lives longer with chronic HIV. HIV-infected persons have an increased incidence of emphysema compared to those without HIV infection, and it has been hypothesized that this accelerated disease progression is the result of one or more latent infectious agents that amplify the pulmonary inflammation. Accelerated emphysema was described in HIV infection in a predominantly male population before HAART. The current prevalence and characteristics of HIV-associated emphysema, and the potential impact of gender, have not been rigorously defined.