Ebook: Clinical Applications of Cytokines and Growth Factors

The hematopoietic system plays roles that are crucial for survival of the host: delivery of oxygen to tissues, arrest of accidental blood leaking from blood vessels, and fending off of invading microbes by humoral, cell-mediated, and phagocytic immunity. The activity of the hematopoietic system is staggering: daily, a normal adult produces approximately 2.5 billion erythrocytes, 2.5 billion platelets, and 1 billion granulocytes per kilogram of body weight. This production is adjusted in a timely fashion to changes in actual needs and can vary from nearly none to many times the normal rate depending on needs which vary from day to day, or even minute to minute. In response to a variety of stimuli, the cellular components of the blood are promptly increased or decreased in production to maintain appropriate numbers to optimally protect the host from hypoxia, infection, and hemorrhage. How does this all happen and happen without over or under responding? There has been extraordinary growth in our understanding ofhematopoiesis over the last two decades. Occupying center stage is the pluripotent stern cell and its progeny. Hematopoietic stern cells have been characterized by their capacity for self renewal and their ability to proliferate and differentiate along multiple lineages. Few in number, the stern cell gives rise to all circulating neutrophils, erythrocytes, lymphoid cells, and platelets. In hematopoietic transplantation, the stern cell is capable of restoring long-term hematopoiesis in a lethally irradiated host.

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The hematopoietic system plays roles that are crucial for survival of the host: delivery of oxygen to tissues, arrest of accidental blood leaking from blood vessels, and fending off invading microbes by humoral, cell- mediated, and phagocytic immunity.
Today several growth factors are available to the clinician as treatments for various pathologic perturbations of hematopoiesis. Their use has also advanced our capacity to safely deliver cancer chemotherapy. Hematopoietic growth factors have become an everyday tool for the practicing oncologist.
In Clinical Applications of Cytokines and Growth Factors recognized experts review the biological interactions between hematopoietic progenitors, growth factors and cytokines, and the stromal micro-environment that have provided the scientific basis for our current understanding of hematopoiesis. In subsequent sections the pathophysiology of neutropenia, anemia and thrombocytopenia are presented, along with discussions of the clinical challenges these pose for the practicing oncologist and hematologist and the roles of various hematopoietic growth factors in therapeutic strategies for these entities.
This volume will provide a thorough and up-to-date review which will be a valuable resource for the clinical oncologist and hematologist.