Hematopoietic Growth Factors for Melanoma
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Melanoma Treatment: Hematopoietic Growth Factors
Oncologists at Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) may utilize hematopoietic growth factors in your fight against melanoma. The word “hematopoietic” means pertaining to or affecting the growth of blood cells. Your hematopoietic system consists of bone marrow, lymph nodes and the other tissues concerned in the production of blood.
Hematopoietic growth factors are a group of substances able to support hematopoietic (blood cell) colony formation in vitro. This group includes erythropoietin, interleukin-3 and colony-stimulating factors. Erythropoietin stimulates production of erythrocytes, or red blood cells. Interleukin-3 and colony-stimulating factors can mature cells, have overlapping capabilities to affect progenitor cells (“parent” cells that will develop into a specific type of cell) of several blood cell lines, and also affect cells outside the hematopoietic system.
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