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Objective. The aim of this prospective, multicenter, noncomparative, open-label trial was to evaluate the prophylactic use of caspofungin in adult liver transplant recipients at high risk of developing invasive fungal infections (IFI). Methods. Patients received caspofungin for at least 21 days. A successful treatment outcome was defined as the absence of breakthrough IFI during the first 100 days after the onset of caspofungin. Results. According to study design, 71 patients were included. In the modified intention-to-treat analysis, successful treatment outcome was obtained in 88.7%. Two patients developed IFI: a Mucor and a Candida albicans surgical wound infections, respectively. Six more patients discontinued caspofungin because of drug-related altered liver function. No clinical side effects were related to caspofungin. Altered analytical data compatible with grade IV toxicity, irrespective of caspofungin attribution, were observed in 27.7% of patients at the end of caspofungin prophylaxis and in 15.4% of patients in safety visit (14 days after ending caspofungin administration) (P=0.13). Eight patients died, six during caspofungin administration and two during follow-up period, but none were attributed to IFI or caspofungin toxicity. Conclusion. These results show that caspofungin could be considered an efficacious and well-tolerated drug as antifungal prophylaxis in high-risk liver transplant recipients.

Aspergillus galactomannan (GM) antigenemia is an early marker of invasive aspergillosis (IA), but may yield false-positive results. A prospective study, testing GM periodically in serum samples of liver transplant recipients, was performed.An index more than or equal to 0.5 were considered positive. Positive GM in samples from patients without any other criteria of proven or probable IA was considered as false-positive. The test was performed weekly during the first month after transplantation.Three patients developed IA. In total, 414 serum samples from 85 liver transplant recipients were analyzed. Mean number of samples per patient (out of those who could be assessed) was 4.8. The number of false-positive GM samples was 40 (9.6%), corresponding to 28 patients. The frequency of false-positive results in samples obtained during the first week posttransplantation was 36% (27 of 75), significantly higher than the number of false-positive samples obtained after the first week (3.8%; 13 of 339; P0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that antibacterial prophylaxis with ampicillin was the only independent factor associated with a false-positive result. Different vials of beta-lactam antibiotics were tested for GM. We obtained a positive GM value (0.5) in four of the six vials of ampicillin, in three of the six vials of piperacillin-tazobactam, in none of the six vials of cefotaxime, and in none of the six controls.The present study suggests that the administration of ampicillin as antibacterial prophylaxis during the first days after transplantation could be a possible cause of false-positive GM results.

Background. Invasive aspergillosis (IA) is an important cause of mortality in liver transplant patients. Clinical and microbiological diagnosis is difficult, and it is frequently achieved only after autopsy. Early diagnosis and antifungal therapy could improve the survival of these patients. Methods. A retrospective case-control study of IA in liver transplant recipients (OLT) was performed to determine the value of the detection of galactomannan Aspergillus antigen in serum using a sandwich-ELISA test (Platelia, Sanofi Diagnostic Pasteur). Stored frozen serum specimens obtained during the posttransplantation period were used. Results. Fourteen cases of IA were diagnosed in 240 OLT recipients (IA incidence: 5.8%) during 5 years with 13 deaths (mortality: 93%). Nine case patients and 33 control patients met the criteria required for being considered “valid” for antigenemia analysis. In five of the nine case patients, a serum sample was positive for Aspergillus antigenemia detection. The median value was 5.7 ng/ml (range: 1.6–6.6). Sensitivity of the test was 55.6%, specificity was 93.9%, the positive predictive value was 71.4%, and the negative predictive value was 88.6%. The likelihood ratio of a positive test was 9.2. Conclusions. Galactomannan detection in serum could be useful for an early diagnosis of IA in OLT recipients.

BACKGROUND: There is scarce information regarding the role of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in the development of infectious complications after kidney transplantation (KT). METHODS: We prospectively analyzed all KT recipients included in the Spanish Network for the Research of Infection in Transplantation cohort from September 2003 to February 2005 with a posttransplant follow-up of 3 years and compared the incidence of both overall and specific infections according to the pretransplant anti-HCV antibody status. RESULTS: Of 1302 analyzed recipients, 105 (8.1%) were anti-HCV positive. These patients presented a higher rate of previous transplant (P