Personalized Medicine and Cancer Supportive Care: Appropriate Use of Colony-Stimulating Factor Support of Chemotherapy

Extract

Myelosuppression and neutropenic complications remain major dose-limiting toxicities of cancer chemotherapy resulting in increased morbidity, mortality, and costs ( 1 , 2 ). The major factors that are associated with the risk of mortality from febrile neutropenia (FN) include older age, cancer type and stage, documented infection, bacteremia, sepsis, venous thromboembolism, and the number of serious comorbid conditions ( 2–6 ). The risk for neutropenic complications, including FN, is greatest during the first cycle of chemotherapy when most patients are still receiving the full dose and schedule ( 7 , 8 ). When subsequent full-dose chemotherapy is continued on schedule without colony-stimulating factor (CSF) prophylaxis despite a previous neutropenic event, the risk of FN remains high throughout the period of chemotherapy treatment ( 9 ). Initiation of the CSFs early in the first cycle of chemotherapy and continuation through all cycles of a chemotherapy regimen (primary prophylaxis) has been shown to substantially reduce the risk of FN as well as infection-related and early all-cause mortality, while decreasing the need for chemotherapy dose reductions and delays ( 10 , 11 ). Furthermore, most of the pivotal trials of primary prophylaxis with CSFs permitted secondary prophylaxis after a neutropenic event in the control arms, providing reasonable evidence that primary prophylaxis is superior to secondary prophylaxis (10). There are also increasing data from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of patients with solid tumors and lymphoma on the potential value of CSF support of chemotherapy to improve overall survival ( 12 ).