The approved indication for oprelvekin is for the prevention of severe thrombocytopenia and reduction in the requirement of platelet transfusions following myelosuppressive chemotherapy in patients with a high risk of severe thrombocytopenia who do not have myeloid malignancies who had severe thrombocytopenia with prior cycle of chemotherapy. Also, the mean number of platelet transfusions was significantly lower in rhIL-11 treated patients. Adverse effects which occurred more frequently among treated patients as compared to patients receiving placebo in clinical trials include palpitations, tachycardia, dyspnea, pleural effusions, headache and conjunctival injections. No drug interactions have been reported with rhIL-11. It has been shown to decrease the need for platelet transfusions, shorten the time to platelet recovery and decrease the number of platelet transfusions in appropriate patients, but it is uncertain in which patients this benefit is clinically significant.
Side effects tend to be mild to moderate in nature and largely attributable to fluid retention.
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