Human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) stimulates the proliferation and differentiation of hematopoietic progenitor cells in the myeloid lineage, and plays a key role in host defence and the inflammatory process. The main schedules adopted for clinical applications of GM-CSF in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) were post-chemotherapy, in order to shorten the duration of neutropenia, and as a mobilising agent to induce release of progenitor cells from bone marrow into circulation.