P. Janssens et al., IS THERE POTENTIAL FOR GRANULOCYTE OR GRANULOCYTE-MACROPHAGE COLONY-STIMULATING FACTORS IN RADIOTHERAPY, European journal of cancer, 30A(5), 1994, pp. 642-645
The purpose of this communication was to explore which situations in r
adiotherapy might benefit from concomitant administration of haematopo
ietic growth factors (HGF). Only large-field radiotherapy is likely to
induce bone marrow depression, such as irradiation of Hodgkin's disea
se. Therefore, we studied 122 patients irradiated for Hodgkin's diseas
e, looking at peripheral blood cell count before, during and after the
treatment. One hundred and four treatments were preceded by chemother
apy (MOPP and/or ABVD) and the radiation dose was between 36 and 44 Gy
in 2 Gy per fraction sessions. Severe leucopenia (grade III WHO) was
very uncommon and justified treatment interruption only twice. In both
cases, it was paired with thrombocytopenia. No infection developed. I
t is concluded that when radiotherapy is used alone, prophylactic use
of HGFs does not seem justified. This, of course, does not apply to ra
diochemotherapy combinations, although thorough investigations in this
field are still awaited.