At the start of treatment, patients receiving erythropoietin require fairly close monitoring every 2–4 weeks. As a minimum, the hemoglobin should be measured, there should be an assessment of iron status, and blood pressure should be checked.
Tag: Iron supplements
Erythropoietin Therapy
Erythropoietin therapy is one of the greatest inventions in Nephrology and it changed the way we treat anemic patients, which we were only dependent on blood transfusions in the past. Erythropoietin is a 165 amino acid secreted glycoprotein. Recombinant erythropoietin is available in two forms α-epoetin and β-epoetin and Darbepoetin is a longer acting erythropoietin with the half-life approximately three folds longer than recombinant erythropoietin. 1µg darbepoetin is equal to 200 IU OF erythropoietin.This has been achieved by adding two extra N – linked carbohydrate side – chains to the erythropoietin molecule. As a result, darbepoetin requires less frequent dosage, usually once a week or once in every two weeks and sometimes only once a month in stable hemodialysis patients.
Management of Anemia in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)
There are two important reasons to correct anemia in renal failure patients. One is to improve or reverse the symptoms associated with renal anemia, and the second is to seize or reverse the deleterious effect of long-standing anemia on the heart and other organs which lead to improved cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in dialysis patients.
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