Recently, recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO) has been claimed to dimi
nish red Blood cell transfusions in premature infants. After a year of expe
rience, we investigated whether early rhEPO treatment would reduce the need
for transfusion.
Patients and methods. - Fifty premature infants of gestational age less tha
n or equal to 32 weeks admitted to our NICU in 1997, received rhEPO 750 UI/
kg/week from day 3 to 5 for six weeks. They were compared with 50 untreated
controls admitted in 1996.
Results. - The treatment and control groups did not differ for gestational
age, weight at birth, CRIB score, and blood losses. We were not able to det
ect any difference in the number of transfused infants, and in the number o
f transfusions per infant until discharge. However, treated infants receive
d significantly fewer transfusions per infant between day 16 and day 45 (0.
42 +/- 0.67 vs. 0.8 +/- 0.99). Infants with a birth weight between 1,000-1,
250 g received fewer transfusions in the EPO group.
Conclusion. - rhEPO treatment can be useful. but in association with other
procedures: conservative transfusion criteria, ;minimization of phlebotomy
losses and early iron supplementation. (C) 1999 Elsevier, Paris.