remove empty strings from paramater list

I have a report stored procedure using a multi value input for paramaters

the input uses a comma split string as the paramater.

i need to remove any spaces entered by the user so that the paramater string will evaluate the records it needs to pull.

Below is the piece of code in my stored procedure that reads the users items

DECLARE @ITEMLIST VARCHAR(MAX)
SET  @ITEMLIST = (ltrim(rtrim(STUFF((SELECT ','+'('''+REPLACE(@ITEM, ',', ''',''')+''')'),1,1,''))))


;WITH  ITEM_LIST AS
 (SELECT 1 AS StartPos, (ltrim(rtrim(@ITEM))) AS ITEMS,(CHARINDEX(',', @ITEM + ',')) AS EndPos
  UNION ALL
  SELECT EndPos + 1 AS StartPos , NULL, CHARINDEX(',' ,@ITEM + ',' , EndPos + 1) AS EndPos 
  FROM ITEM_LIST
  WHERE CHARINDEX(',', @ITEM + ',', EndPos + 1) <> 0)

now if the end user places a value of 12345,98765 - it works because it has no space between the comma and the second item. But 12345, 98765 does not work. The report renders but does not evaluate the second item

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.