Clinically driven diagnostic antifungal approach in neutropenic patients: a prospective feasibility study.

Purpose: Preemptive strategies in neutropenic patients based on serum galactomannan (GM) -guided triggering of diagnostic work-up may be time-consuming and expensive when applied to the entire population. We have assessed the feasibility of a clinically driven diagnostic strategy without GM screening.

Patients And Methods: Patients with neutropenic fever underwent a baseline diagnostic work-up (BDWU; three blood cultures and other examinations as indicated).

B-cell concentration in the apheretic product predicts acute graft-versus-host disease and treatment-related mortality of allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell transplantation.

Background: The influence of the graft composition on the clinical outcome after allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) transplantation is not well established.

Methods: The cellular composition of the apheretic products obtained from 63 human leukocyte antigen-identical siblings was prospectively correlated with the outcome of patients with hematological malignancies undergoing an allogeneic PBSC transplant after myeloablative conditioning. The concentration of nuclear, mononuclear, CD34+, T-cell subsets, B cells, and natural killer cells in the graft has been analyzed.