Efficacy and Safety of Lipegfilgrastim for the Prophylaxis of Chemotherapy-induced Neutropenia in Breast Cancer Patients in Poland

Abstract

IntroductionLipegfilgrastim is a long-acting glycopegylated granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) used to prevent chemotherapy-induced neutropenia (CIN) and febrile neutropenia (FN). The aim of the current study was to obtain data on the drug efficacy and safety in real-world clinical practice.Material and methodsThis is an exploratory analysis of Polish breast cancer patients participating in a pan-European study of lipegfilgrastim in primary and secondary prophylaxis for patients receiving cytotoxic chemotherapy (Lonquex ObsErvational Cohort Study, LEOS). Patients were followed since the start of neutropenia prophylaxis until 6 to 8 weeks after the last dose of the lipegfilgrastim . The efficacy measures were chemotherapy dose reductions, omissions, delays and the proportion of the planned cumulative dose actually delivered.ResultsA total of 45 mostly high risk of FN patients were included in the analysis. Overall, 31 of 212 chemotherapy cycles (14.6%) were delayed in 19 patients (42.2%). Cumulative dose of chemotherapy was reduced in 1.4% of the cycles in 4.4% of the patients. The mean percentage of cumulative dose planned actually administrated was 99.95% across all cycles. Only one patient had FN. There were 15 episodes of neutropenia in 3 patients (6.7%), A total of 69 adverse events were reported, which 65% were drug-related. The most common were musculoskeletal pain (17.8%) and myalgia (11.1%) Four adverse events were serious and two of them were related to lipegfilgrastim.ConclusionsLipegfilgrastim proved to be effective and well-tolerated for CIN prophylaxis in patients with breast cancer receiving myelosuppressive chemotherapy in a real-life setting.