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Preoperative treatment of anemic women with epoetin beta
1Departments of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Nephrology, Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, and Roche AB, Stockholm, Sweden.
Aim:
To compare the effects of preoperative treatment with recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO) and iron with iron only on hemoglobin levels (Hb) in anemic women prior to hysterectomy.
Methods:
The study was an open-labelled randomized parallel study. Fifteen women scheduled for hysterectomy due to uterine myoma were given oral iron and EPO (NeoRecormon) 4 weeks prior to surgery (group I) and 16 women were given oral iron only (group II).
Results:
Group I showed a significantly greater increase in mean Hb during the pre-surgery study period compared with group II (p=0.007). Two weeks postoperatively, however, there was no significant difference in mean Hb between the two groups.
Conclusion:
We found that a significantly greater increase in Hb was achieved with iron in combination with EPO, although in most cases iron only seemed to be as efficacious as iron+EPO in correcting anemia in myoma patients pre-operatively.