Abstract: Refractory or recurrent acute leukemia (AL) is the most difficult problem in the leukemia treatment, with rapid disease progress, difficult to cure, easy to relapse and even threaten patients' life. In recent years, the combination of various chemotherapy drugs has achieved good clinical effects in the treatment for AL. Chemotherapy regimens containing cytokines priming could make leukemia cells in the stationary stage mobilize into the S phase, enhance the killing effect of chemotherapeutic drugs, especially cycle-specific agent, increase the remission rate of chemotherapy and remove minimal residual disease. This paper reviews on the recent advances of the chemotherapy containing G-CSF priming for refractory or recurrent AL.