Hematologic complications of chronic renal failure.

Uremia interferes with erythropoiesis, granulocyte, platelet, and immune functions. As a result, uremic patients are almost invariably anemic, and have a high incidence of infections and hemorrhagic complications. The anemia of renal failure, which is caused primarily by damage to the site of erythropoietin production is often complex, and complicated by hemolysis from a variety of mechanisms, iron deficiency, and so forth. Although hemodialysis ameliorates some of the hematologic complications to a variable degree, they remain a serious hinderance to the well being of this group of patients. Progress in understanding the mechanism of these problems and their therapy has been reviewed here.