Like all medicines, Neupogen® can cause side effects, although not everybody gets them.
Please tell your doctor immediately during treatment:
if you experience an allergic reaction including weakness, drop in blood pressure, difficulty breathing, swelling of the face (anaphylaxis), skin rash, itchy rash (urticaria), swelling of the face lips, mouth, tongue or throat (angioedema) and shortness of breath (dyspnoea).
if you experience a cough, fever and difficulty breathing (dyspnoea) as this can be a sign of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS).
if you experience kidney injury (glomerulonephritis). Kidney injury has been seen in patients who received Neupogen®. Call your doctor right away if you experience puffiness in your face or ankles, blood in your urine or brown-coloured urine or you notice you urinate less than usual.
if you have any of the following or combination of the following side effects:
- swelling or puffiness, which may be associated with passing water less frequently, difficulty breathing, abdominal swelling and feeling of fullness, and a general feeling of tiredness. These symptoms generally develop in a rapid fashion.
These could be symptoms of a condition called “Capillary Leak Syndrome” which causes blood to leak from the small blood vessels into your body and needs urgent medical attention.
if you have a combination of any of the following symptoms:
- fever, or shivering, or feeling very cold, high heart rate, confusion or disorientation, shortness of breath, extreme pain or discomfort and clammy or sweaty skin.
These could be symptoms of a condition called “sepsis” (also called "blood poisoning"), a severe infection with whole-body inflammatory response which can be life threatening and needs urgent medical attention.
if you get left upper belly (abdominal) pain, pain below the left rib cage or pain at the tip of your shoulder, as there may be a problem with your spleen (enlargement of the spleen (splenomegaly) or rupture of the spleen).
if you are being treated for severe chronic neutropenia and you have blood in your urine (haematuria). Your doctor may regularly test your urine if you experience this side effect or if protein is found in your urine (proteinuria).
if you notice unusual bleeding or bruising (these may be symptoms of a decrease in blood platelets (thrombocytopenia), with a reduced ability of your blood to clot).
Inflammation of aorta (the large blood vessel which transports blood from the heart to the body) has been reported rarely in cancer patients and healthy donors. The symptoms can include fever, abdominal pain, malaise, back pain and increased inflammatory markers. Tell your doctor if you experience those symptoms.
A common side effect of Neupogen® use is pain in your muscles or bones (musculoskeletal pain), which can be helped by taking standard pain relief medicines (analgesics). In patients undergoing a stem cell or bone marrow transplant, Graft versus host disease (GvHD) may occur- this is a reaction of the donor cells against the patient receiving the transplant; signs and symptoms include rash on the palms of your hands or soles of your feet and ulcer and sores in your mouth, gut, liver, skin, or your eyes, lungs, vagina and joints.
In normal stem cell donors an increase in white blood cells (leukocytosis) and a decrease of platelets may be seen this reduces the ability of your blood to clot (thrombocytopenia), these will be monitored by your doctor.