Continuous Intravenous Pentoxifylline in Bone Marrow Transplant Recipients: First Results of a Pilot Study

Recent preliminary clinical reports and a large array of experimental data suggest that pentoxifylline [(3,7-dimethyl-1-(5-oxohexyl)-xanthine, PTX] may be useful in ameliorating or preventing some of the indispensible toxicities and adverse events associated with the marrow transplant procedure [1,2]. To allow constant and high bioavailability of the compound and its major active metabolite 1-(5-hydroxyhexyl)-3,7-dimethylxanthine (5-OH-metabolite), a feasibility study in which PTX is given by continuous intravenous infusion is currently performed in patients with leukemia undergoing allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) at our institution. This study is aimed to define a tolerable dose-schedule of PTX and to investigate the pharmacology of the compound in this setting.