Cancer Support Care May Up Blood Diseases

Breast-cancer patients who get growth factors to up white blood-cell counts may have a higher risk of blood diseases, say New York researchers.

In fact, researchers at Columbia University Medical Center and New York Presbyterian Hospital found a nearly 2-percent incidence of a blood cancer called acute myelocytic leukemia (AML) or a less severe bone-marrow disorder called myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) among breast-cancer patients who received growth factors, compared to a 1.04-percent rate in the women who didn’t get the growth factors.

To arrive at those findings, the researchers reviewed a database of 5,510 women age 65 and older who were diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer and treated with chemotherapy between 1991 and 1999. Sixteen percent of the patients were treated with growth factors G-CSF, GM-CSF, or both.

The researchers said the increase in the blood disorders might be caused when the growth factors indiscriminately keep white blood cells alive that have been mutated by the chemotherapy, and which can then develop into AML or MDS.

The study appears in the Feb. 7 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.