What can be done to prevent neutropenia?
Emerging treatments with white blood cell growth factors have proven immensely helpful in preventing neutropenia as triggered by chemotherapy. These blood cell growth factors are generally termed cytokines, and they occur naturally.
Cytokines play a fundamental role in regulating crucial metabolic processes in our bodies. These are the substances saddled with amplifying blood cell production via the stimulation of bone marrow cells.
Medications like Neulasta and Neupogen have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for preventing this said neutropenia.
How about treating older people?
For elderly cancer patients, they desperately need their treatment plan to go on smoothly without any disruption. Outcomes are dramatically different (in a positive sense) for seniors if they receive full chemotherapy doses and on time. This is primarily in the case of treating tumors.
This makes neutropenia highly undesirable for elderly patients. Of course, considering the relatively heightened vulnerability of seniors (compared to younger patients) to neutropenia, preventing neutropenia in older patients can be the difference between survival and death.
Excitingly, there are now medications that boost the neutrophil count in seniors. These boosters can stimulate the increased production of white blood cells.
This ensures there is a reasonable amount to fight off infections triggered by chemotherapy. With this fortification in place, disruptions in chemotherapy treatment can be largely avoided for seniors.
Isn’t this worth throwing a party?