Serious pulmonary complications in patients receiving recombinant granulocyte colony-stimulating factor during BACOP chemotherapy for aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Four of 12 Chinese patients receiving BACOP, in combination with recombinant human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, for aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma developed a rapidly progressive pneumonic illness characterised by diffuse pulmonary infiltrates and hypoxaemia. The condition proved fatal in three, and in none could an infective cause be identified. A retrospective analysis revealed only one episode of pneumonia in the previous 24 patients in whom the same BACOP regimen was administered without granulocyte colony-stimulating factor support. Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, by augmenting white cell production, pulmonary sequestration and margination and production of toxic oxygen species, may exacerbate underlying subclinical bleomycin pulmonary toxicity. Caution should be exercised before using granulocyte-stimulating factors in bleomycin-containing regimens.