Infrequent dosing of subcutaneous erythropoietin for the treatment of anemia in patients on CAPD.

Erythropoietin (EPO) given subcutaneously (SC) once per week has been successful in the treatment of anemia in continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) patients. We have identified a population of CAPD patients that requires EPO administration once per week or less often. To determine if specific variables could be identified that would predict which CAPD patients would require infrequent EPO dosing, we reviewed the charts of all our CAPD patients who were receiving EPO as of 1 June 1992. Patients had to have been on CAPD for 3 months and EPO for 3 months to be considered for analysis. We identified 12 patients who required EPO once per week or less frequently (infrequent EPO) and 9 patients who required EPO more than once per week (frequent EPO). Parameters that were analyzed included age, gender, race, time on CAPD, history of gastrointestinal bleeding, exit-site infection or peritonitis in the last 60 days, diabetes, amount of dialysate instilled per day, and the number of exchanges per day. Laboratory data that were analyzed included hemoglobin, hematocrit, serum iron, total iron-binding capacity, ferritin, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine, BUN/creatinine ratio, albumin, total protein, parathyroid hormone, and aluminum. Categorical data were analyzed via chi-square, and numerical data were analyzed via the t-test. The infrequent EPO group required only 35% as much EPO as the frequent group to maintain hemoglobin and hematocrit, which were significantly greater. The only parameter that was different between the two groups was age (infrequent EPO 42 +/- 13.2 vs frequent EPO 55.8 +/- 11.9 years, p < 0.05).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)