Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor and Granulocyte-Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor

Therapeutic Applications Acute Neutropenia after Myelotoxic Anticancer Therapy The administration of a colony-stimulating factor after standard-dose chemotherapy may be either prophylactic (i.e., given to prevent infectious complications) or therapeutic (i.e., given to patients in whom fever develops while they have neutropenia). Except in experimental treatment approaches for myeloid neoplasms, the administration of a colony-stimulating factor should not immediately precede or overlap with cytotoxic therapy, because the cycling of hematopoietic progenitor cells stimulated by the factor may increase their sensitivity to cytotoxic drugs, thus increasing rather than reducing the myelotoxicity of the cytotoxic agent.^{85 , 86} A theoretical precaution relates to the observation…