Frequency of febrile neutropenia in breast cancer patients receiving epirubicin and docetaxel/paclitaxel with colony-stimulating growth factors: A comparison of filgrastim or lenograstim with pegfilgrastim

Objective: Recombinant granulocyte colony- stimulating factors ( G- CSF) have been shown to be effective in reducing the risk of infections associated with antitumour chemotherapy. This report describes a single- centre experience of the efficacy of pegfilgrastim compared with filgrastim or lenograstim in reducing the incidence of febrile neutropenia in patients receiving combination chemotherapy with taxane and epirubicin in a neoadjuvant and adjuvant setting. Methods: A total of 118 patients with breast cancer were treated with either epirubicin 75 mg/ m(2) and docetaxel 75 mg/ m 2 or epirubicin 90 mg/ m 2 and paclitaxel 200 mg/ m(2) every 3 weeks; 88 received G- CSF support with daily filgrastim or lenograstim and 30 with pegfilgrastim once per cycle. Results: Eight patients ( 9.1%) with prophylactic filgrastim or lenograstim support developed febrile neutropenia, as well as 1 patient ( 3.3%) in the pegfilgrastim group ( p = 0.445). Febrile neutropenia occurred in 13 ( 2.7%) of 476 filgrastim or lenograstim supported chemotherapy cycles and in 2 ( 1.2%) of 172 cycles with pegfilgrastim support ( p = 0.376). The fre-quency of chemotherapy delays and dose reductions was not significantly different between the two G- CSF treatment groups. Conclusion: These data show a trend towards superiority of pegfilgrastim over filgrastim or lenograstim in reducing the frequency of febrile neutropenia in patients treated with taxane and epirubicin chemotherapy regimens for breast cancer. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel.