Anemia is a common manifestation of CKD. Currently, there are no guidelines for nephrologists regarding erythropoietin stimulating agents (ESAs or Epo or Darbe) use in patients with CKD with previous or active malignancy. Recently an excellent review of…
For anyone who would like to read a thorough review of the current evidence with regard to Hb targets and the use of ESAs in patients with CKD and those on dialysis, I strongly recommend the review published…
Since the discovery of Erythropoietin in 1977 and subsequent cloning of the gene in 1985, recombinant Erythropoietin (EPO) has been widely used in the management of anemia due to cancer, chemotherapy, and chronic kidney disease. Although the endocrine…
Having just returned from my own honeymoon, I was taken by this recent hypothesis-piece by Fishbane et al. They have made some observations on the natural history of untreated renal anemia from examining the placebo arm of the…
This morning at ATC, the results of a very interesting trial were presented. I would like to share them with you so we can look at them more carefully once the paper is published. The CAPRIT trial is…
Well, I had hoped to be more of an active blogger during my holiday vacation this year, but my internet access has been much spottier than desired way out in the boondocks of Western France (not that I…
Why do some dialysis patients require so much more Epogen than others? Some patients manage to hit their targets with relatively low doses, and may even require “holding” EPO injections to avoid the upper hemoglobin range where excess…
The TREAT trial was one of the bigger stories to emerge from this years ASN. This was a large, multicenter trial of darbepoeitin (Aranesp) vs. placebo in 4000 predialysis CKD patients with type 2 diabetes and anemia. The…
There are numerous formulations of recombinant human erythropoietin, but only a few of which are used in the U.S. Generally speaking, all of the formulations have the exact same 165 amino acid core sequence which encodes the human…
