Use of colony-stimulating factors in combination with high-dose chemotherapy

Recent clinical trials of two hematopoietic cytokines, granulocyte- and granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factors, in combination with chemotherapy, have shown that they allow substantially higher doses of chemotherapeutic agents to be used. Administering cytokines decreased the length of time for granulocyte recovery, the incidence of infection, the need for antibiotics, as well as shortening the duration of hospitalizations. Current work is focusing on the use of cytokines to stimulate circulating progenitor cells for pheresis and replacement. There are still striking gaps, however, in our knowledge of the interactions of the various cytokines with each other and with chemotherapeutic agents.