New antiviral drug cuts cytomegalovirus infection, improves survival in patients undergoing donor stem cell transplant
The results represent a breakthrough in a decade-long effort to identify an effective drug for the prevention of CMV infection in transplant patients that doesn't produce side effects that negate the benefit of the drug itself, the study authors said. The findings, from an international phase 3 clinical trial of the drug letermovir for preventing cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in transplant patients, will be presented at the 2017 Bone Marrow Transplant Tandem Meetings of the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (ASBMT) and the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) in Orlando, Florida, February 22, 2017. The study, which involved 565 adult patients at 67 research centers in 20 countries, compared letermovir to placebo in preventing an active CMV infection following transplant with donor stem cells. The patients, who were undergoing transplant as treatment for blood-related cancers or other disorders, all carried a CMV i...