A Randomized Controlled Clinical Study of Peg-Rhg-CSF for Preventing Chemotherapy-Induced Neutropenia in Patients with B-Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma
Authors: Zhen Changqing , Ding Mei , Lu Kang , Ge Xueling , Chen Na , Fang Xiaosheng , Sui Xiaohui , Yujie Jiang , Liu Xin , Li Ying , Wang Xianghua , Li Ying , Zhang Lingyan , Xu Hongzhi , Fan Juan , Wang Xin 
Published: November 2019

Introduction: B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma is the most frequent type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. RCHOP regimen is established as the standard therapy for aggressive and indolent B-cell NHL, which has a 10%-20% rate of febrile neutropenia (FN). Recently, pegylated recombinant human granulocyte colony stimulating factor (PEG-rhG-CSF) is frequently used in clinical practice. This randomized controlled clinical study was conducted to investigate the efficacy and safety of prophylactic PEG-rhG-CSF in patients with B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma on RCHOP chemotherapy.
Methods:We included 162 patients with pathological diagnosis of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, follicular lymphoma and mantle cell lymphoma (MCL),from October 2016 to May 2019 at Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University. All patients gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The patients were randomized into PEG-rhG-CSF and rhG-CSF groups. Each patient received three cycles of chemotherapy with identical RCHOP regimens. In the study group, the patients received PEG-rhG-CSF 6mg(weight≥45Kg)or 3mg(weight≤45Kg)once 24 hours after the end of chemotherapy drugs of every chemotherapy cycle. In the control group, they weren't preventively administered rhG-CSF. If their neutrophil count (ANC)≤1.0×109/L, they were administered rhG-CSF:5ug/kg/day until their neutrophil count (ANC)≥2.0×109/L. The primary endpoint was the incidence of III/IV grade neutropenia and febrile neutropenia(FN) after each chemotherapy cycle. Meanwhile the rate of antibiotics application and safety were observed. Analyses were performed with SPSS Statistics 20.0 (IBM-SPSS, Chicago, Illinois). The numerical data was presented as mean ± SD. Statistical analysis was performed using one-way analysis of variance and chi-square test. A p-value<0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results: Clinical characteristics for PEG-rhG-CSF and rhG-CSF groups were shown in Table1. There were no significant differences in age, gender,height, body weight, body mass index, Ann Arbor and IPI staging. The incidence of IV grade neutropenia during cycle 1 in 81 evaluable study cycles and 81 evaluable control cycles were 7.41% and 35.80%( P<0.01), with durations of 2.85±0.62 days and 3.11±1.23 days (P>0.05). The differences in I/II/III grade neutropenia between study and control groups weren't statistically significant (Table2,Fig.1). After secondary prophylactic use of PEG-rhG-CSF In the study group, the incidences of III/IV grade neutropenia decreased from 77.78% to 14.81% (P<0.01).Statistically significant differences were observed in the incidences of FN (12.35% and 34.57% for the PEG-rhG-CSF and rhG-CSF groups, respectively; P<0.01) and in the proportion of patients who received antibiotic therapy (11.11% and 37.04%, respectively; P<0.01) during cycle 1(Table2,Fig .2). The safety profiles of PEG-rhG-CSF and rhG-CSF were similar. Bone pain occurred in 7.41% of the cases during the study cycles and 2.47% in the control cycles (P>0.05 ), which were mostly mild or moderate. Patients receiving PEG-rhG-CSF who developed III/IV grade neutropenia were significantly older than those without neutropenia (53.41±14.96 vs. 63.64±4.65;years; p=0.01) (Fig.3).The incidence of III/IV grade neutropenia in patients older than 60 years was significantly higher than that in patients younger than 60 years(24.44% vs. 6.38%; P =0.038).
Conclusions: Prophylactic use of PEG-rhG-CSF could effectively reduce the incidences of grade III/IV neutropenia and FN, which ensures that patients with lymphoma receive standard-dose chemotherapy to improve prognosis. III/IV grade neutropenia after prophylactic use of PEG-rhG-CSF were more likely to occur in patients older than 60 years. After the use of PEG-rhG-CSF, the elderly patients should be pay more attention to them.

Disclosures
No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.