[Recombinant human erythropoietin: 18 months of continuous use in substitution hemodialysis]

It has been shown that the regular administration of EPO permits the correction of anemia in end stage renal failure patients. We analyzed the effect of chronic administration of EPO in 13 stable, regularly-dialysed end stage renal failure patients over an 18 month period. The effects of EPO were evaluated according to standard criteria including clinical status, blood pressure control, hematology and biochemistry data, protein nutritional status and dialysis efficiency. Following a 2 week control period, EPO was administered intravenously after the dialysis session according to a 2 phase protocol. The first period (correction phase) consisted of a stepwise EPO dose increment, starting at 24 IU/kg x 3 times and doubling the dose every 14 days according to hemoglobin response in order to achieve a target hemoglobin level of 11 g/dl. In the second period (maintenance phase) EPO dose was optimized to maintain the hemoglobin level between 10 and 11 g/dl, by adjusting either the dose or the frequency of injection. Anemia was corrected in all patients within 10 weeks with EPO dose increasing from 72 to 360 IU/kg/week. The stabilisation of hemoglobin was achieved with an average EPO dose of 275 IU/kg/week (50 to 476 IU/kg/week). Concomitantly, a subjective and clinical improvement was noted in all patients. The dialysis efficacy, although remaining in an acceptable range, fell significantly by 10% over the first 3 months of treatment, remaining stable afterwards, yielding an effective urea clearance near to 120 1/week. The dietary protein intake calculated from urea kinetic modelling ranged between 1.1 and 1.2 g/kg/day.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)