Question

A client is being administered chemotherapeutic agents for the treatment of cancer. Which blood cells will be stimulated by the colony-stimulating factors in response to the effects of the chemotherapy?

Answer 1

Answer:

The white blood cells i.e. granulocytes and macrophages are specifically stimulated by GM-CSF  in response to chemotherapy in cancer patients.

Explanation:

The colony stimulating factors (CSFs) are the regulators of granulocytes and macrophages in blood. The CSFs has the potential to regenerate the white blood cells damaged during chemotherapy. Thus, CSFs mobilize the stem cells to enhance the immune process and produce hematopoietic cells such as granulocytes, macrophages in cancer patients. The CSFs resemble hormones that are specifically targeted to produce blood cells in specified regions where the quantity of those cells is low. The CSFs belong to a group of regulatory factors also known as cytokines and does not produce only a single cell type but stimulates colonies of different blood cell types for any specific organ. Hematopoietic cells produced by CSF are step-wise and formation of blast colonies take place initially. Afterwards, the blast cells regenerate and differentiated into multiple progenitor cells consisting of granulocytes, monocytes, macrophages, eosinophills, erythroids, and lymphocytes. The progenitor cells in the granulocyte-macrophage lineage matures into neutrophilic granulocytes and macrophages.  

Out of all types of CSF colonies, the Granulocyte-Macrophage (GM-CSF) colony is specially involved in regenerating immune responses in cancer patients. These cytokines stimulates the dendritic cell formation and produces dendritic activity against the cancerous cells. These GM-CSF colonies enhance the immune response of host against melanomas, tumors by reducing their growth and inducing remission. Hence, it can be said that granulocytes and macrophages are infection protective cells and elevates dangerously low levels of white blood cells in cancer patients following chemotherapy. The GM-CSF induction regenerates the bone marrow which is damaged and improves stem cells production.