Chemotherapy is frequently associated with hematologic toxicity. Neutropenia with or without fever is a relevant cause of morbidity, mortality and costs, compromising treatment administration and clinical outcomes. The development of granulocyte colony-stimulating factors has had a positive impact on the clinician's approach to neutropenia. Such agents, currently used for primary and secondary prophylaxis of chemotherapy-induced neutropenia and febrile neutropenia (FN), are effective in limiting hematologic toxicities and consequently allow the administration of intensive dose-dense regimens. Several biosimilar products of filgrastim have been developed over the years, showing effects similar to the originator drug. Until now, pegfilgrastim has been the only available long-acting factor, requiring just a single administration per chemotherapy cycle. The recent approval of the novel granulocyte colony-stimulating factors, lipegfilgrastim, offers interesting therapeutic alternatives. In fact, similar to pegfilgrastim, it has been demonstrated to reduce the duration of neutropenia and the occurrence of FN during chemotherapy safely.
Keywords: GlycoPEGylation; chemotherapy induced-neutropenia; granulocyte colony stimulating factor; lipegfilgrastim; primary prophylaxis.