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NDT Advance Access originally published online on October 12, 2005
Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation 2005 20(12):2605-2608; doi:10.1093/ndt/gfh970
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© The Author [2005]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of ERA-EDTA. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Editorial Comment

Erythropoietin in the critically ill: what is the evidence?

Howard L. Corwin1 and Kai-Uwe Eckardt2

1 Section of Critical Care Medicine, Departments of Medicine and Anesthesiology, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH, USA and 2 Department of Nephrology and Hypertension, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany

Correspondence and offprint requests to: Kai-Uwe Eckardt, Department of Nephrology and Hypertension, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany. Email: Kai-Uwe.Eckardt@med4.med.uni-erlangen.de

Keywords: Anemia; blood; critical; illness; erythropoietin; intensive care

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.



   Introduction
 
In patients with chronic kidney disease receiving regular treatment with recombinant erythropoietins (rHuEPO or epoetins), infection and inflammation may lead to erythropoietin resistance and loss of efficacy. During episodes of acute illness there is variability in practice regarding whether erythropoietin therapy is temporarily halted, maintained unchanged or intensified.

Recently, the potential of erythropoietin therapy to increase red cell production in critically ill patients per se has received considerable attention. Experience in this field has interesting implications for the management of chronic anaemia in other clinical settings.



   Red blood cell transfusions in critical care
 
The discussion of the role of erythropoietin in the critically ill cannot be separated from the issues surrounding blood transfusion today. Red blood cell (RBC) transfusion, an integral part of clinical practice for most of the last century, has long been looked upon as relatively ‘risk free’ and with obvious clinical benefits [1]. A dramatic change in thinking occurred in the early . . . [Full Text of this Article]



   Characteristics of anaemia in critical illness
 


   Study results
 


   Potential risks and benefits
 


   Conclusions
 

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