Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor as secondary prophylaxis of febrile neutropenia in the management of advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma treated with adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine and dacarbazine chemotherapy: a decision analysis.

Current practice guidelines are unclear regarding the role of secondary prophylaxis of febrile neutropenia in advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma despite several small retrospective studies that demonstrate the omission of growth factors to be a safe and economic practice. We used a decision-analytic model to compare secondary prophylaxis with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) to no G-CSF with the onset of severe neutropenia for a hypothetical cohort of patients with advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma treated with adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine and dacarbazine (ABVD). There was a net benefit of 0.017 years and 0.037 quality-adjusted life years for no G-CSF use in severe neutropenia. On microsimulation (10 000 trials), 96% of the simulations showed that the no G-CSF strategy is preferred to the use of G-CSF. This finding was robust across a wide range of sensitivity analyses. Our analysis suggests that G-CSF not be used as secondary prophylaxis of febrile neutropenia in advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma.