Use of recombinant human erythropoietin to assist autologous blood donation by anemic rheumatoid arthritis patients undergoing major orthopedic surgery

Abstract

Recombinant human erythropoietin is safe and effective in stimulating erythropoiesis, allowing preoperative donation of blood for autologous use, and reducing exposure to allogeneic blood for RA patients who are unable preoperatively to deposit blood because of anemia.

The effect of intravenous iron on the reticulocyte response to recombinant human erythropoietin

“…Intravenous (i.v.) iron treatment has been used to maximize the response to r-HuEPO and diminish possible r-HuEPO wastage in volunteers (Breymann et al, 1995(Breymann et al, , 1996Mercuriali et al, 1993Mercuriali et al, , 1994. The use of i.v.…”

Erythropoiesis after Therapy with Recombinant Human Erythropoietin: A Dose–Response Study in Anemic Cancer Surgery Patients

“…The erythropoietic response was evaluated by the difference between baseline and end of treatment hemoglobin levels and by the production of new RBC (RBC gain) according to Mercuriali et al [9]. …”

“…Preoperative treatment with recombinant human erythropoietin (r–HuEPO) enhanced erythropoiesis, increased autologous blood collection and reduced perioperative transfusions in anemic patients with gastrointestinal cancer or rheumatoid arthritis [7, 8, 9]. One drawback of this therapy is the high cost, which limits a wide application.…”

Blood conservation in orthopaedic surgery: the role of epoetin alfa

“…The efficacy of epoetin alfa in patients undergoing major elective orthopaedic surgery has been demonstrated in numerous clinical studies (Table 2) [1,4,5,7,11,15,16,17,18,21,22,26,32,33,40,41,42]. These studies established the clinical rationale, the optimum dosage regimen, and identified orthopaedic patient populations that demonstrated significant benefits from epoetin alfa treatment [4,7,11,15].…”