Lithium carbonate and granulocyte function during cancer chemotherapy. Preliminary report

Abstract

Lithium has recently been used in association with cancer chemotherapy(CT). Granulocytic leukopenia is one of the major side effects of CT; it leads to the risk of serious infections and to antineoplastic drug doses reduction, preventing a correct therapeutic schedule. Therefore lithium, that induces a reversible neutrophilia, probably increasing colony stimulating factor(I) and peripheral PMN survival(2), has been promoted as an adjuvant in CT (3). There are many data about effectivness of lithium in attenuating leukopenia and neutropenia, but there is little information about PMN function during lithium treatment. If the increase of PMN count is accompanied by a reduction of their functional capacity, lithium treatment would be of little usefulness. There is some controversy on this subject and only very few studies are dealing with cancer patients(4). In a previous study(5), we too demonstrated the positive effect of lithium on WBC count and PMN count during antiblastic treatment. Now we want to test a possible effect of lithium on PMN function, in cancer patients undergoing CT.