Long-Term Safety of Filgrastim in Chronic Neutropenias

Twenty years after the detection of human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-SCF) (1) and 10 years since commercial launch of the recombinant human form, filgrastim, millions of patients have been treated to decrease the incidence of infection, as manifested by neutropenia (2) . Filgrastim has utility in patients with nonmyeloid malignancies who are receiving myelosuppressive anticancer drugs. These drugs are associated with a significant incidence of severe febrile neutropenia (FN) in the settings of bone marrow transplantation (BMT), severe chronic neutropenia (SCN), and mobilization of peripheral blood progenitor cells (PBPCs). In addition to adverse events reported in these licensed indications, postmarket reports in nonlicensed clinical settings, i.e., human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), and noncytotoxic drug-induced neutropenia, have been published (3) . These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.