The impact of tocilizumab treatment for cytokine release syndrome on the incidence of early blood stream infections after peripheral blood haploidentical hematopoietic cell transplantation.

Cytokine release syndrome (CRS) is a potentially fatal systemic inflammatory response that can occur in patients undergoing peripheral blood haploidentical hematopoietic cell transplantation (haplo-HCT). Severe CRS has previously been associated with increased infection risk. IL-6 inhibitors, such as tocilizumab, are useful in moderate to severe CRS, but their effect on infection risk has not been established in this setting.

The impact of initiating posaconazole on tacrolimus pharmacokinetics in allogeneic stem cell transplantation.

Background: Posaconazole reduces the risk of invasive Aspergillus in transplant patients, but significantly inhibits tacrolimus metabolism. One study demonstrated that a three-fold dose reduction of tacrolimus was required to obtain therapeutic concentrations when used with posaconazole. However, with empiric dose reduction, there is a risk of subtherapeutic tacrolimus levels and subsequent graft failure or graft-versus-host disease.

Retrospective chart evaluation of hypercalcemia management in oncology patients at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

Introduction Due to the lack of formal guideline recommendations, available primary literature was used to develop a proposed protocol for management of hypercalcemia of malignancy at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Methods A retrospective, single center, observational study was performed including adult patients hospitalized with a diagnosis of hypercalcemia and active malignancy. Patients were retrospectively identified as treated in a manner aligned with the proposed protocol ("per protocol") or not treated according to the proposed protocol ("off protocol"), and the outcomes were compared.