Modelling Human Granulopoiesis under Poly-chemotherapy with G-CSF Support

Cytotoxic drugs administered in polychemotherapy cause a characteristic neutropenic period depending on the schedule of the drugs, which can partly be prevented by G-CSF growth factor support. To quantify these effects and to gain a deeper insight into the dynamics of bone marrow recovery after such suppressing and stimulating disturbances, we construct a biomathematical compartment model of human granulopoiesis under polychemotherapy with G-CSF support. The underlying assumptions and mathematical techniques used to obtain the model are explained in detail. A large variety of biological and clinical data as well as knowledge from a model of murine haematopoiesis are evaluated to construct a physiological model for humans.Particular emphasis is placed on estimating the influence of chemotherapeutic drugs on the granulopoietic system. As a result, we present an innovative method to estimate the bone marrow damage caused by cytotoxic drugs with respect to single identifiable cell stages only on the basis of measured peripheral blood leukocyte dynamics. Conversely, our model can be used in a planning phase of a clinical trial to estimate the haematotoxicity of regimens based on new combinations of drugs already considered and with or without growth factor support.Acknowledgement This paper was supported by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) in the framework of the project Aufbau von Simulationsmodellen der h{\a}matopoetischen Dynamik nach konventioneller und hochdosierter Chemotherapie und Zytokingabe beim Menschen (Nr. LO 342/8-2). We would like to thank the German High Grade Non-Hodgkins-Lymphoma Study Group and the German Hodgkins Lymphoma Study Group for the kind provision of data.