White Cells & Growth Factors

Colony-Stimulating Factors and Platelet Agonists: Rebuilding the Marrow

Erythropoietin already taught us that we can order the bone marrow to build more of one cell line on demand — for red cells. But the marrow is a tree with three great branches, and each has its own hormone. This chapter meets the drugs that pull up the other two branches: G-CSF to raise neutrophils and rescue a chemotherapy patient from deadly infection, and TPO receptor agonists to raise platelets and spare a patient the surgeon's knife. One growth factor per lineage — a precise lever on the haematopoiesis tree.