Affiliations of authors: Department of Internal Medicine I, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany (JB, SL, AE); Institute of Medical Biometry and Medical Informatics, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany (GS); Technology Evaluation Center, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Chicago, IL (JS, MP); Department of Veterans Affairs Chicago Healthcare System, Lakeside Division and Northwestern University, Chicago, IL (CB)
Correspondence to: Andreas Engert, MD, Department of Internal Medicine I, University of Cologne, Kerpener Str. 62, 50924 Cologne, Germany (e-mail: a.engert{at}uni-koeln.de).
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ABSTRACT |
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INTRODUCTION |
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Historically, blood transfusion has been the treatment of choice for severe cancer-related anemia. Severe anemia, which is defined as a hemoglobin level less than 8 g/dL, is usually treated, whereas mild-to-moderate anemia (hemoglobin level of 811 g/dL) is left untreated in most patients. Although blood transfusion is the fastest means to alleviate symptoms associated with anemia, there are short- and long-term risks associated with this treatment, such as transmission of infectious agents, transfusion reactions, alloimmunization, and overtransfusion (12). The development of increasingly more aggressive antineoplastic treatments that may lead to anemia has increased the need for blood transfusions and has prompted oncologists to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of transfusion. Two forms of recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEpo), epoetin alfa and epoetin beta, both with similar clinical efficacy (13,14), are available to treat anemia and have been tested in randomized controlled trials. Recently, a novel long-acting erythropoietin variant (novel erythropoiesis stimulating protein [NESP] or darbepoetin alfa) has been introduced into clinical practice (15,16).
Evidence-based guidelines and several systematic reviews on erythropoietin in cancer patients that concentrate on specific underlying malignancies, such as myelodysplastic syndromes (17) and solid tumors (18) or specific clinical outcomes such as quality of life (19) or methodologic issues (20), have been published. A systematic review of erythropoietin treatment published by the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) provides the most comprehensive summary of clinical trials to date (21,22). Although the AHRQ report provides evidence that erythropoietin significantly reduces blood transfusion requirements, the critical question, whether erythropoietin affects overall survival, could not be addressed using the published data available at that time. In collaboration with authors of the AHRQ report, we here present the results of our systematic review of erythropoietin treatment with respect to hematologic response, red blood cell transfusion need, adverse events, and overall survival. This report is part of the Cochrane Review, in which additional outcomes (tumor response, quality of life, and fatigue) are being addressed. An updated Cochrane Review that includes randomized studies of darbepoetin alfa is being planned (23).
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METHODS |
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Trials were identified by searching the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, Medline, EMBASE, and Internet databases of ongoing trials. We manually searched the conference proceedings of the American Society of Hematology, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and the European Society of Medical Oncology for clinical trial information. Experts in the field at academic institutions and at pharmaceutical companies were contacted to provide information about their study. Citations of all trials identified in the search were checked for additional references. We searched for articles published from January 1985 through December 2001. No language restrictions were used. The full search strategy is published in the Cochrane Library (23).
Inclusion Criteria
Only randomized controlled trials among patients of any age with a histologically or clinically proven malignancy were included in this analysis, regardless of type or stage of disease or previous therapy. Other causes of anemia, such as hemolysis or iron deficiency, had to be ruled out. Epoetin alfa or epoetin beta had to be administered subcutaneously or intravenously at doses of at least 300 U/kg of body weight per week and given for at least 4 weeks to prevent or reduce anemia in cancer patients treated with or without nonmyeloablative antineoplastic therapy. Dose adaptation of erythropoietin, depending on hematologic response, was allowed. The control group had to receive identical antineoplastic and supportive treatment, e.g., iron supplementation and placebo or no experimental treatment. We included published and unpublished data. We excluded ongoing studies, interim analyses, crossover studies, quasi-randomized studies, and studies with 10 or fewer patients per study arm. Studies on long-acting substances, such as darbepoetin alfa, were not included in this review.
Study Selection, Quality Assessment, and Data Extraction
Study selection, quality assessment, and data extraction were carried out independently by two reviewers (S. Langensiepen and J. Bohlius). Any disagreement between the reviewers was resolved by discussion involving a third party (A. Engert, G. Schwarzer). Assessment of study quality included randomization, concealment of allocation, masking of patients and clinicians, documentation of dropouts and withdrawals, and intent-to-treat analysis. To obtain unreported data, we contacted the first author of the included trials. The investigators were also asked for details about the study design as well as aggregated patient data with respect to baseline characteristics, and several study outcomes, including hematologic response, initial and final hemoglobin levels, the number of transfused patients, the number of red blood cells transfused, and individual patient data regarding survival duration. Hematologic response was defined as an increase in hemoglobin level of 2 g/dL or more or an increase in hematocrit of 6% or more, unrelated to blood transfusion.
Data Analysis and Statistical Methods
Analyses were performed using Review Manager (RevMan, version 4.2.7 for Windows; Oxford, England): The Cochrane Collaboration 2004; the statistical software package R (24) was used for additional analyses not possible with RevMan. A fixed-effects model was assumed in all meta-analyses. For binary data, the relative risk was used to measure treatment effect; the MantelHaenszel method was used to pool relative risks. The estimated overall relative risk and a plausible value for baseline risk were used to estimate numbers of patients needed to treat. For continuous data, weighted mean differences were calculated. Overall survival was calculated as hazard ratios (HRs) and was based on individual patient data when possible. If individual patient data were not available, the hazard ratio was calculated from data obtained from published reports, using methods described by Parmar et al. (25) or derived from binary mortality data. The number of patients needed to treat for overall survival was calculated with data from trials with available individual patient data at arbitrarily chosen time points (at 60 and 150 days), based on methods described by Altman et al. (26). The P value of the homogeneity test was used only to describe the extent of heterogeneity inherent in a meta-analysis. Potential causes of heterogeneity were explored by performing sensitivity and subgroup analyses (see below). The influence of a single large study on the pooled estimates was tested in a sensitivity analysis by including and excluding it. In meta-analyses with at least four trials, a funnel plot was generated and a linear regression test (27) was performed to examine the likely presence of publication bias in meta-analysis. A P value less than .1 was considered statistically significant for the linear regression test. Potential causes of heterogeneity were explored by performing sensitivity analyses to evaluate the effects of hemoglobin level at study entry, type of tumor, antineoplastic therapy given, duration of study, study quality, source of data, and the influence of single large studies on the effectiveness of erythropoietin treatment. In addition to subgroup analyses, a fixed-effect metaregression (28) was conducted for the outcome "patients receiving red blood cell transfusions." All covariates showing a statistically significant effect in univariate analysis were included in the multivariable analysis. A backward selection method was used for the model; the covariate with the largest P value was consecutively removed until only statistically significant covariates, according to the Akaike Information Criterion (29), remained in the model. Statistical tests for heterogeneity were one-sided; statistical tests for effect estimates were two-sided.
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RESULTS |
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A total of 1592 potentially relevant trials were screened for inclusion. Eighty-one studies were retrieved for more information. Of these, 54 were excluded because they did not meet the inclusion criteria (n = 30) or were still ongoing (n = 24). A flow diagram of the process used to identify and evaluate potentially relevant trials is displayed in Fig. 1.
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Details of the studies are shown in Table 1. All included studies were described by the authors as randomized. In 17 of 27 trials, which covered 2490 (76%) of the patients included in the analysis, the method for concealing allocation was judged to be adequate. In 10 studies, the method for concealing allocation could not be determined. Fourteen trials were placebo controlled. Most of the studies included intent-to-treat calculations or excluded fewer than 10% of the participants from the analyses. Twenty-two studies were published as full text, and five were abstracts (3741). For 19 of the 27 trials, which covered 2930 (89%) of the patients, additional unpublished data were provided by investigators.
Patients Receiving Red Blood Cell Transfusions
Twenty-five trials with 3069 patients reported the percentage of patients who received red blood cell transfusions (3033,3554). Investigators provided unpublished aggregated results for 1525 (49.7%) of the included patients (30,31,38,40,43,44,48,51), whereas data from the remaining 1544 (50.3%) patients were taken from published reports (32,33,35,36,39,41,42,4547,49,50,5254,55). Patients treated with erythropoietin had a 33% lower risk of transfusion than untreated patients (relative risk [RR] = 0.67, 95% CI = 0.62 to 0.73, 25 studies; n = 3069, Fig. 2).
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Thirteen studies with 2056 patients were included in the analysis (3033,38,40,4244,47,49,51,55). All included data were unpublished aggregated results provided by the investigators. The overall weighted mean difference between the amount of blood transfused in treated and untreated patients showed a statistically significant benefit for patients receiving erythropoietin (1.00, 95% CI = 1.31 to 0.70, 13 studies, n = 2056). In other words, the erythropoietin-treated group received 1.00 unit of blood less on average than the control group, in which patients received an average of 3.57 units of blood. There was no statistically significant heterogeneity among the trials (P = .91), and sensitivity analyses did not show statistically significant differences. Whether studies with more than one experimental arm were analyzed with separated experimental arms or merged into one experimental arm did not influence the overall result (data not shown).
Hematologic Response
Data from 2347 patients with a baseline hemoglobin level below 10 g/dL from 14 trials were analyzed (30,31,33,38,40,42,44,4752,55). Investigators provided unpublished aggregated results for 1359 (58%) of the patients (30,31,33,38,40,48,51), whereas data from 988 (42%) of the patients was taken from published reports (42,44,47,49,50,52,55). Hematologic response was observed in 690 of 1338 patients (median = 48%, range = 9%70%) in the erythropoietin group compared with 142 of 1009 patients (median = 11%, range = 0%27%) in the control group, corresponding to a relative risk for hematologic response for erythropoietin versus control of 3.60 (95% CI = 3.07 to 4.23, 14 trials, n = 2347). The funnel plot was asymmetric (P = .01), suggesting that negative results (i.e., no hematologic response) were underreported. Whether studies with more than one experimental arm were analyzed with separated experimental arms or merged into one experimental arm did not influence the overall result (data not shown). In addition, data from investigators' personal communications were statistically significantly (P = .04) more conservative (RR = 3.18, 95% CI = 2.61 to 3.88, seven trials, n = 1359) than data from full-text publications (RR = 4.23, 95% CI = 3.31 to 5.64, seven studies, n = 988). Other sensitivity analyses did not show statistically significant differences between the subgroups compared.
Adverse Events
Based on 1738 patients in 12 trials, thromboembolic events, such as transient ischemic attacks, stroke, or myocardial infarction, were observed in 43 (4%) of 1019 of the erythropoietin group and in 14 (2%) of 719 of the control group (3032,36,41,43,44,47,48,50,52,53). The pooled relative risk was increased by 58% in the erythropoietin-treated group (RR = 1.58, 95% CI = 0.94 to 2.66, 12 trials, n = 1738), but the increase was not statistically significant. There was no statistically significant heterogeneity among the trials (P = .99). A funnel plot analysis revealed statistically significant asymmetry (P = .003), suggesting that negative results (i.e., no thrombotic event) were underreported. We excluded the study published by Littlewood et al. (50), which contributed 46.6% to the weight of the overall result in a sensitivity analysis to explore the influence of this single large study. Exclusion of this study did not change the overall result (data not shown). No statistically significant differences were observed between subgroups with different hemoglobin levels at baseline (data not shown). Whether studies with more than one experimental arm were analyzed with separated experimental arms or merged into one experimental arm did not influence the overall result (data not shown).
Hypertension data were reported for 1656 patients from 12 studies (31,32,35,36,40,43,44,47,50,53,55,56). The relative risk of developing hypertension was 19% higher in erythropoietin-treated patients than in untreated patients, but the increase was not statistically significant (RR = 1.19, 95% CI = 0.96 to 1.49, 12 studies, n = 1656, Table 3). There was no statistically significant heterogeneity among the trials (P = .35). Funnel plot analysis revealed statistically significant asymmetry (P = .02), suggesting that negative results (i.e., no hypertension) were underreported. Whether studies with more than one experimental arm were analyzed with separated experimental arms or merged into one experimental arm did not influence the overall result (data not shown).
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Overall Survival
Overall survival was compared among 2805 randomized patients from 19 studies (3033,36,38,4047,4952,55). Studies included patients with solid tumors only (32,36,41,43,45,46,49,51), patients with hematologic malignancies only (30,31,33,40,55), patients with both solid and hematologic malignancies (38,42,44,47,50), or patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (52). Fourteen studies included anemic patients with baseline Hb less than 10 g/dL, two studies assessed patients with baseline Hb from 10 to 12 g/dL (32,41), and three prevention trials analyzed only patients with baseline Hb level greater than 12 g/dL (36,45,46). For seven studies, including 1235 (44%) of 2805 of the data points analyzed, individual patient data were provided by the authors; for the other studies, the hazard ratio was either calculated as described by Parmar et al. (25) or from binary mortality data. For the Littlewood et al. (50) study, which contributed 50.9% weight to the overall analyses, both adjusted (Cox regression) and unadjusted (KaplanMeier) aggregated survival data were available, but individual patient data were not available. To test the influence of the two statistical methods used, we used both estimates in the analysis. The pooled hazard ratio was statistically significant (HR = 0.81, 95% CI = 0.67 to 0.99, 19 trials, n = 2805, Fig. 3) when we included the adjusted survival data from Littlewood et al. (50), but not when we included the unadjusted survival data (HR = 0.84, 95% CI = 0.69 to 1.02, data not shown). There was no heterogeneity among the trials (P = .6). Whether studies with more than one experimental arm were analyzed with separated experimental arms or merged into one experimental arm did not influence the overall result (data not shown). On average, the median observation time of the included studies was 84 days [range = 42 days (46) to 7.17 years (45)]. Although the included studies were clinically heterogenous, sensitivity analyses for baseline hemoglobin level, tumor entity, different antineoplastic therapies, study quality, duration of follow up, and published versus unpublished data and funnel plot analysis did not reveal statistically significant differences among the studies. For seven studies with available individual patient data, survival probabilities in the control group were estimated by the KaplanMeier method for 60 and 150 days after treatment onset. Survival probabilities in the control group ranged from 0.82 to 1.00 at 60 days after treatment onset and from 0.73 to 100 after 150 days. Accordingly, to calculate the number of patients needed to treat, survival probabilities of 0.90 and 0.80 were assumed for 60 and 150 days, respectively. Given this information and the estimated hazard ratio of 0.81, the number of patients with a need to treat after 60 days was 55 (95% CI = 31.4 to 1,054). If we assume this calculated effect is real, 55 patients would have to be treated to prevent one death within 60 days of treatment onset. For the same patient population, the number needed to treat was 29 (95% CI = 16.4 to 559.6) after 150 days. Therefore, treating 29 patients with erythropoietin would prevent one death within 150 days of treatment onset.
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DISCUSSION |
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There is strong and consistent evidence that treatment with recombinant human erythropoietins may reduce the need for red blood cell transfusion and increase hematologic response rates. Patients treated with erythropoietin had a statistically significantly lower risk of blood transfusion and, on average, received statistically significantly fewer blood transfusions than control patients. Similarly, there was consistent evidence that patients with a mean hemoglobin level below 10 g/dL at study entry who were treated with erythropoietin had an increased frequency of hematologic responses than untreated patients, independent of transfusion. From a clinical point of view, sparing patients from red blood cell transfusion is meaningful. Among patients with a 50% risk of blood transfusion, the number needed to treat was 6.06 (95% CI = 5.26 to 7.41), suggesting that six patients would have to be treated with erythropoietin to prevent one patient from undergoing blood transfusion. The overall reduction in red blood cell units transfused seems to be less meaningful. It is unlikely that patients would care whether they received 3.6 or 2.6 units of blood on average. The relevance of this reduction for other health services, such as blood banks, will vary between institutions, depending on their case patient population. Results of a metaregression analysis for the risk of transfusions suggested that erythropoietin might be more effective in patients with solid tumors than in patients with hematologic malignancies or myelodysplastic syndrome. However, there was no evidence that baseline hemoglobin levels at the initiation of erythropoietin treatment (<10 g/dL versus 1012 g/dL versus >12 g/dL) had a statistically significant influence on the risk of transfusion or the quantitative benefit of erythropoietin. Results of laboratory analyses of predictive factors, such as low baseline serum erythropoietin level, or a decreased ratio of observed-to-predicted erythropoietin levels (31), were unavailable to permit a meta-analysis based on individual patient data.
The randomized controlled studies included in our analysis were of good methodologic quality. For example, the methods of concealing allocation were judged to be satisfactory for most of the studies, which included 76% of the patients randomly assigned. The meta-analysis of the specific outcomes showed a high proportion of studies with proper allocation concealment that ranged between 79.1% (transfusion risk) and 94.3% (overall survival). There was no evidence that performance bias affected the overall study results. We obtained additional unreported data for 19 of the 27 trials, representing 89% of the patients included. When we compared results obtained using published versus unreported data, the unreported dataset yielded more conservative pooled estimates than those based only on published data. Thus, any bias introduced into this meta-analysis by unreported data would have decreased rather than increased the apparent effectiveness of erythropoietin.
Studies with more than one experimental group created some methodologic problems because of the specific requirements of the software we used (RevMan version 4.2.5). In studies with more than one erythropoietin dose arm, the control arm had to be artificially divided into as many control arms as treatment arms, which decreased the apparent size of the control arm, reduced some groups to very small numbers, and thus affected the weighting of these studies. However, an alternative analysis (data not shown) that instead merged experimental arms yielded similar results.
This meta-analysis demonstrated suggestive but inconclusive evidence for improved overall survival among patients treated with erythropoietin (HR = 0.81, 95% CI = 0.67 to 0.99). The relevance of this finding is unclear because none of the trials included in the analysis of overall survival was designed or had adequate statistical power to determine whether erythropoietin increases overall survival. Also, this result was not robust to changes in the statistical methods used. Although the pooled hazard ratio was statistically significant when we included data from the largest study (50), analyzed by Cox regression, and adjusted for confounders, it was no longer statistically significant if the same study was analyzed with the unadjusted raw data (HR = 0.84, 95% CI = 0.69 to 1.02). The computed effects would be clinically meaningful if they are real. On the basis of the available data and the relatively short follow-up, we estimated that it would be necessary to treat 55 (95% CI = 31.4 to 1054) patients for 60 days with erythropoietin to prevent one death. With a longer follow-up period of 150 days, the estimated number needed to treat was 29 (95% CI = 16.4 to 559.6). However, the confidence intervals around these estimates are wide, indicating substantial uncertainty surrounding these results.
These provocative findings on overall survival from our meta-analysis differ from results of two recently published clinical trials. Henke et al. (10) reported that among 351 patients with head and neck cancer undergoing radiotherapy, those who received erythropoietin had a worse overall survival (RR = 1.39; 95% CI = 1.05 to 1.84, P = .02) than those who did not. Similarly, a multicenter trial that investigated the use of erythropoietin as an adjunct to chemotherapy among 939 patients with metastatic breast cancer undergoing first-line therapy was terminated early because survival at 12 months was worse in the group that received erythropoietin than the group that did not (70% versus 76%; P = .017), although the survival curves converged at 19 months (11). Because our review included only studies published from 1985 through 2001, neither of these two studies (10,11) was included in this analysis. In the study by Leyland-Jones et al. (11), the mortality rate during the first 4 months of study was explained in part by an increased incidence of thrombotic and vascular events in the erythropoietin group versus control (1% versus 0.2%) and in part by an increase in incidence of disease progression in the erythropoietin group versus control (6% versus 3%). In the study by Henke et al. (10), vascular disorders, including hypertension, hemorrhage, venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism and cerebrovascular events, were observed in 11% of patients in the erythropoietin group and in 5% of the placebo group when the data were analyzed on an intent-to-treat basis. Taken together, these studies raised concerns about the safety of erythropoietins, particularly when used in clinical trials aimed at raising the hemoglobin at a target level of 1214 g/dL and higher. These safety questions were discussed during a comprehensive Food and Drug Administration hearing on May 4, 2004 (57). The discussion at that meeting, at which results of company-sponsored meta-analyses on the safety of erythropoietins were presented, focused on the difference between the results of studies performed according to the current American Society of Hematology and American Society of Clinical Oncology guidelines and those of studies aimed at increasing hemoglobin to levels that exceed correction of anemia. Clinical studies aimed at maintaining a high hemoglobin level (10,11) seem to report that erythropoietin treatment was associated with a higher risk of thrombovascular events. This higher risk is further supported by the fact that three additional studies targeting hemoglobin levels between 14 and 16 g/dL were closed prematurely because of increased thromboembolic complications in the erythropoietin arm (57). In addition, studies evaluating erythropoietin to maintain different hematocrit levels of end-stage renal failure patients with pronounced cardiovascular risk factors showed that patients with high hematocrit levels had an increased mortality due to thrombovascular events (57,58). Taken together, the major difference between the Henke et al. (10) study and our systematic review is the substantially higher mean final hemoglobin levels in the former trial at the end of study (15.4 g/dL, SD = 1.7), which may have contributed to the higher number of thrombovascular events. Among the studies included in our analysis, the final hemoglobin levels ranged from 9.82 g/dL (SD = 2.10) (31) to 13.9 g/dL (SD = 1.85) (32). Although the relative risk for thromboembolic events was increased by 58%, with 43 (4%) of 1019 thromboembolic events occurring in the erythropoietin group and 14 (2%) of 719 occurring in the control group, this difference was not statistically significant. Overall, the data evaluated in this systematic review are insufficient to conclude that erythropoietin increases the risk for thromboembolic complications in the clinical settings analyzed in our review.
The reduced tumor control associated with erythropoietin treatment reported in the studies published by Henke et al. (10) and Leyland-Jones et al. (11) raises additional pathophysiological considerations. Tumor tissue is often hypoxic, and hypoxia may be more prevalent in anemic patients than in patients with normal hemoglobin levels (59,60). Tumor hypoxia may impair the effectiveness of chemotherapy and radiotherapy (46,8). Studies using animal models have provided evidence suggesting that increasing the hemoglobin level with erythropoietin might improve tumor oxygenation (61), and results of clinical studies indicate that erythropoietin may improve response to radiotherapy (9). However, preclinical studies (60,61) have reported high levels of erythropoietin and erythropoietin receptors in breast cancer cells and other malignancies. Both endogenously produced or exogenously administered erythropoietin could theoretically promote the proliferation and survival of erythropoietin receptorexpressing cancer cells (6265). High hemoglobin concentrations may reduce the oxygen supply in the tumor, due to viscous resistance (66) or thromboembolic events within the tumor bed (67) and thus diminish tumor response to therapy. In addition, imbalances in baseline prognostic factors between the erythropoietin and control groups in the studies published by Henke et al. (10) and Leyland-Jones et al. (11) may also explain the poor tumor control in the erythropoietin-treated patients.
Our literature search ended in December 2001 because that was when the project protocol was finalized and when requests for unpublished data were sent to the investigators. As a consequence, studies published later were not included in this meta-analysis. In addition to the studies of Henke et al. and Leyland-Jones et al., another six studies with approximately 751 patients have been published as full-text articles since. Three of these studies reported survival or mortality data for 90 (68), 144 (69), and 330 (70) patients. There were no statistically significant survival differences observed between the erythropoietin group and the untreated patients (6870). An update of the Cochrane Review is being planned.
Other adverse events reportedly related to erythropoietin include hypertension and the production of anti-erythropoietinspecific antibodies. In patients with chronic renal failure, hypertension is the most common adverse effect of erythropoietin (71). This analysis shows that erythropoietin is associated with a 19% increase (not statistically significant) in the relative risk of hypertension for cancer patients. There has been some discussion about whether neutralizing anti-erythropoietinspecific antibodies cause pure red cell aplasia in patients with chronic renal failure following treatment with erythropoietin (7274). The studies included in this review did not report any cases of erythropoietin antibody production, but only six of the included studies have addressed this subject (30,32,36,42,47,51).
In view of the inconclusive evidence presently available, our results suggest that erythropoietin should not be used to increase overall survival outside clinical trials. Erythropoietin may be used routinely outside of clinical trials to increase hemoglobin levels and to reduce the need for transfusion in patients with falling hemoglobin levels approaching 10 g/dL. Adverse events such as thromboembolic complications and hypertension should be monitored.
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NOTES |
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The CHMG is funded, as part of the Competence Network Malignant Lymphomas, by the German Ministry of Education and Research.
Julia Bohlius was invited by Amgen to participate at a symposium. Jerome Seidenfeld and Margaret Piper are employed by a membership association of health plans. Andreas Engert received research grants for other projects from Amgen, OrthoBiotech, and Roche, and has served as a consultant for Ortho Biotech. Charles Bennett received research grants in the past from Amgen (Thousand Oaks, CA) and Ortho-Biotech (Raritan, NJ) and has done consulting work for Amgen and Johnson & Johnson. Simon Langensiepen and Guido Schwarzer have no potential conflicts of interest.
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