Feasibility study of IL-11 and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor after myelosuppressive chemotherapy to mobilize peripheral blood stem cells from heavily pretreated patients.

Purpose: Pediatric patients with solid tumors treated with prolonged dose-intensive chemoradiotherapy are poor mobilizers of peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC). We have conducted a pilot study to mobilize PBSC in eight pediatric patients with relapsed solid tumors using ifosfamide, carboplatin, and etoposide (ICE) followed-up by IL-11 plus granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF).

Patients And Methods: Patients received ifosfamide 1.8 g/m2 per day for 5 days, carboplatin 400 mg/m2 per day for 2 days, and etoposide 100 mg/m2 per day for 5 days. After completion of ICE chemotherapy, patients received daily subcutaneous injections of G-CSF (5 microg/kg per day) and IL-11 (50-100 microg/kg per day) until peripheral stem cell apheresis.

Results: The median age was 11 years. Diagnosis included three relapsed Hodgkin disease, three relapsed central nervous system tumors, one relapsed Wilms tumor, and one relapsed rhabdomyosarcoma. The median number of apheresis procedures required to obtain 5 x 10(6) CD34+ cells/kg was one. The mean +/- standard error of mean (SEM) total CD34+ cells collected was 14.0+/-2.7 x 10(6)/kg. The mean +/- SEM total CD34+/CD41+ cells collected was 4.6+/-1.9 x 10(6)/kg. Seven of the eight patients have subsequently undergone myeloablative chemotherapy with autologous PBSC transplantation and have reconstituted hematopoiesis with a median time to neutrophil recovery of 10 days and platelet recovery of 15.5 days.

Conclusions: We conclude that the regimen of ICE/IL-11 plus G-CSF is successful in mobilizing large numbers of CD34+ PBSC cells with a limited number (one) of apheresis collections in patients that have previously been heavily pretreated with chemotherapy/radiotherapy.