[Human monocytic colony-stimulating factor]

Abstract

Human monocytic colony-stimulating factor (hM-CSF) is a glycoprotein which stimulates monocyte production in the bone marrow. It enhances CSF (such as G- and GM-CSF) production of monocytes and megakaryocyte-potentiating activity (Meg-POT). It also enhances tumor-killing activity of monocytes against several leukemic cell lines such as K562, U937, HL60 and Daudi. In the clinical studies, it was shown that hM-CSF infusions accelerated the recovery from neutropenia as well as thrombopenia after anticancer chemotherapy against hematological, gynecologic and urogenital malignancies. Human M-CSF infusions were tolerable without any serious side effects. It is reported that infusions of G-CSF and GM-CSF cause the increment of leukemic cell counts in some cases, but hM-CSF infusions did not increase leukemic cell counts. These results indicate that hM-CSF may be potentially useful for the treatment of myelosuppression induced by cancer chemotherapy in cancer patients.