Prophylaxis of neutropenia in elderly patients

Abstract

Chemotherapy-induced neutropenia is a major dose-limiting toxicity of systemic cancer chemotherapy and can lead to fever and life-threatening infections. Complications of cytotoxic chemotherapy are more common in older patients than in younger. Prospective trials in older patients with lymphomas or solid tumors have found that age is a risk factor for chemotherapy-induced neutropenia and febrile neutropenia. Granulocyte colony-stimulating factors reduce the duration of neutropenia and its febrile complications, frequency of hospitalization and using of therapeutic antibiotics in patients with hematological malignancies. Prophylaxis of neutropenia with granulocyte colony-stimulating factors makes treatment with optimal-dose chemotherapy possible, especially in the elderly patients.