Ba. Standage et al., DOES THE USE OF ERYTHROPOIETIN IN HEMODIALYSIS-PATIENTS INCREASE DIALYSIS GRAFT THROMBOSIS RATES, The American journal of surgery, 165(5), 1993, pp. 650-654
Erythropoietin (EPO) is highly efficacious in the treatment of the ane
mia of chronic renal failure. Evidence for a reported serious side eff
ect, increased dialysis graft thrombosis, is equivocal. Sixty-four hem
odialysis patients utilizing polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) grafts wer
e treated with EPO. The patients served as their own historical contro
ls. There were 1.188 thrombectomies and 0.222 mechanical problems per
1,000 patient-days prior to the initiation of EPO treatment. With EPO,
the values were 0.656 and 0.222, respectively. Patients were separate
d into low-, medium-, and high-dose EPO groups and analyzed within gro
ups for the effect of EPO and between groups for a dose-dependent resp
onse. According to an analysis of variance procedure, there was no sta
tistically significant differences between the groups, which suggests
that EPO is not thrombogenic to dialysis grafts.