Antineoplastic drugs belong to the most toxic substances, which have a low therapeutic index, and positive therapeutic effects can be observed if respectively large doses are applied.

The toxicity of cytostatics, especially to normal, fast proliferating cells, may lead to dangerous adverse reactions. One of the most frequent and most dangerous complications of chemotherapy is bone marrow damage.

Chemotherapy-induced neutropenia (CIN) and its consequences like febrile neutropenia (FN) related with infection continue being serious complications of treating neoplastic patients despite the introduction of targeted therapies, such as: monoclonal antibodies, tyrosine kinase inhibitors and vascular endothelial growth factor receptors.

Febrile neutropenia involves significant mortality; about 6.8-9.5% of patients hospitalised due to febrile neutropenia die [1].The use of granulocyte growth factors (filgrastim, pegfilgrastim, lenograstim) is an important prophylactic measure in the treatment of neutropenia, as they limit the need for dose reduction and for lengthening intervals between consecutive cytostatic cycles.

Keywords: neutropenia, neutropenic fever, granulocyte growth factors.