New emerging applications of molgramostim in acute myeloid leukaemia.

Human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) stimulates the proliferation and differentiation of hematopoietic progenitor cells in the myeloid lineage, and plays a key role in host defence and the inflammatory process. The main schedules adopted for clinical applications of GM-CSF in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) were post-chemotherapy, in order to shorten the duration of neutropenia, and as a mobilising agent to induce release of progenitor cells from bone marrow into circulation. Based on the variety of biologic effects being attributed to GM-CSF, additional clinical uses for GM-CSF have been under investigation. Concurrent administration to chemotherapy has been used to recruit blast cells into active cell cycle phases, and to increase their sensitivity to cell cycle-dependent cytotoxic drugs. Exposure to GM-CSF also has recently been shown to enhance cellular immunity and indirectly stimulate anti-tumour immunity. On the other hand, GM-CSF can directly enhance immunogenicity of tumours.