Effects of triiodothyronine on the anemia of chronic renal failure

The present study was done in order to determine whether treatment with triiodothyronine (T3) would improve the anemia of chronic renal insufficiency. Four patients with stable renal failure and anemia were treated with 75 microgram/day of T3 for a period of four weeks. The patients were not in chronic dialysis, had normochromic normocytic anemia and hypocellular bone marrow, and showed no evidence of external blood loss during the study. They had received no iron, folic acid, or androgenic steroids for at least six months prior to the study. The administered dose of T3 was adequate to depress the serum levels of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH); however, there was no detectable improvement in the levels of hemoglobin, hematocrit, bone marrow cellularity, serum and erythrocyte folate determinations, serum iron (Fe), 59Fe half-life, plasma iron turnover rate, percentage Fe incorporated into red blood cells, or in the ratio of surface radioactive counting over bone marrow/liver and spleen. It is concluded that the experimental observations concerning direct bone marrow stimulation by T3 in anephric rats are probably not clinically applicable for the treatment of the anemia associated with uremia.