Neutropenia and its subsequent infectious complications represent the most common dose-limiting toxicity of cancer chemotherapy. Febrile neutropenia (FN) occurs with common chemotherapy regimens in 25 to 40 % of treatment-naive patients, and its severity depends on the dose intensity of the chemotherapy regimen, the patient's prior history and comorbidities. Neutropenia is associated with the risk of life-threatening infections as well as chemotherapy dose reductions and delays that may compromise treatment outcome. One of the first, most important and sustained applications of recombinant DNA technology in medicine was the cloning and introduction into clinical practice of several glycoprotein factors involved in the regulation of hematopoiesis. Colony-stimulating factors (CSFs) such as granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) are now an integral part of the prevention of potentially life-threatening FN. Important uses of CSFs in oncology are prevention of FN after chemotherapy, treatment of FN, collection of CSF-mobilised peripheral stem cells and support following peripheral stem cells transplantation. This article reviews the data supporting the clearly clinical applications of CSFs in oncology.