What Should I Tell My Healthcare Provider?
You should talk with your healthcare provider prior to taking pegfilgrastim if you have:
- Sickle cell anemia
- Myeloid cancers or precancerous conditions, such as:
- Any allergies, including allergies to food, dyes, or preservatives.
Also, let your healthcare provider know if you are:
- Pregnant or thinking of becoming pregnant
- Breastfeeding.
Make sure to tell your healthcare provider about all other medicines you are taking, including prescription and nonprescription medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements.
How Does Pegfilgrastim Work?
Chemotherapy often decreases the ability of bone marrow ability to produce neutrophils, a certain type of white blood cell (WBC). Neutrophils help protect the body from infection, and having a low neutrophil count (known medically as neutropenia) increases the risk of infection.
Pegfilgrastim belongs to a group of medications called granulocyte colony-stimulating factors. These bind to stem cells in the bone marrow, stimulating the production of blood cells.
Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) is a naturally occurring chemical in the body that stimulates the production of neutrophils. Pegfilgrastim is a synthetic version of G-CSF attached to another molecule designed to make it stay in the body longer. This means that it needs to be injected only once per chemotherapy cycle.
The medication binds to stem cells and stimulates the production of neutrophils, helping to decrease the risk of infection.
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