Allows More Aggressive Chemotherapy on Cancer Victims : Protein Cuts Risk of Infections in Marrow Transplants
A naturally occurring protein can help cancer patients avoid infections and bleeding after undergoing bone marrow transplants to replace marrow destroyed by chemotherapy, researchers reported Wednesday.
Such cancer patients are vulnerable to hemorrhaging and infections between the time their own marrow stops functioning and the time the new marrow takes hold.
The protein, known as GM-CSF, speeds the growth of the new marrow and shortens the time it takes for it to begin functioning, allowing doctors to use chemotherapy more aggressively to treat the cancer.
The new findings are the latest involving a group of naturally occurring “growth factors” reproduced through genetic engineering techniques that doctors hope will be beneficial for a variety of uses, including boosting the immune systems of AIDS patients and improving cancer treatment.
“We’re all very excited about the use of these growth factors, especially GM-CSF,” said Dr. Arthur W. Nienhuis of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. “This class of growth factors will represent a major new therapeutic advance in many types of patients.”
GM-CSF, which stands for granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, stimulates the growth of bone marrow, which manufactures immune system cells. In previous studies, the substance bolstered the immune systems of patients with AIDS and appeared promising for treating patients with bone marrow diseases.
In the new study, doctors at Duke University Medical Center gave GM-CSF to 19 patients who had undergone bone marrow transplants because their marrow had been destroyed when they received intensive chemotherapy for breast or skin cancer.
These patients began producing white blood cells much more quickly than another 24 patients who had undergone transplants for the same reason but did not receive GM-CSF, the researchers reported.
“Our results indicate that (GM-CSF) can accelerate (bone marrow) recovery after high-dose chemotherapy and autologous bone marrow transplantation,” the researchers wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine.
