Early erythropoietin use for the prevention of anemia in very low birth weight newborns

Background: Anemia is common among very low birth weight newborns and requi res frequent blood transfusions. Erythropoietin was been reported to be use ful in the prevention of this anemia. Aim: To asses the benefits of early (before the third week of life) Human r ecombinant Erythropoietin (r-EPO) administration to reduce the requirement of blood transfusions in very low birth weight newborns. Patients and methods: sixty newborns under 1500g of birthweight were random ly assigned to recive r-EPO (n=29) or placebo (n=31) three times per week, during four weeks. Packed red cell volume and reticulocyte counts were meas ured weekly. Serum erythropoietin was measured prior to eigth dose. Transfu sion requirements were recorded. Results: r-EPO reduced transfusions from 1.41 +/- 1.1 to 0.69 +/- 1 transfu sions/newborns (p<0.001). At the fourth week of treatment, reticulocyte cou nt was 14.8 +/- 7 and 6.4 +/- 4.9% in the active treatment group and placeb o group respectively (p<0.001). Conclusions: r-EPO reduces the requrement of transfusions in low birth weig ht infants.