NOXAFIL® (posaconazole) Oral Suspension, an antifungal agent by Schering-Plough Corporation (NYSE: SGP) has received a category 1 recommendation (1) (highest rating) for preventing certain invasive fungal infections (IFIs) in high-risk cancer patients and a category 2B recommendation (2) for preventing IFIs in neutropenic cancer patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT).
Such recommendations are included in the most recent National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology for Prevention and Treatment of Infections in Patients with Cancer.
NCCN is an alliance of 20 leading U.S. cancer centers and the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology are the recognized standard for clinical practice in the oncology community.
Approved by the USFDA in September 2006 for the prevention of invasive Aspergillus and Candida infections in patients 13 years of age and older who are at high risk of developing these infections due to being severely immunocompromised (HSCT recipients with GVHD or those with hematologic malignancies with prolonged neutropenia from chemotherapy), NOXAFIL® (full info in pdf file) is the first and only antifungal agent USFDA-approved for the prevention of IFIs caused by both Aspergillus and Candida.
Find more details from the full report.
(1) Category 1 recommendation: There is uniform NCCN consensus, based on high-level evidence, that the recommendation is appropriate.
(2) Category 2B recommendation: There is nonuniform NCCN consensus (but no major disagreement), based on lower-level evidence including clinical experience, that the recommendation is appropriate.
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