Abstract

Cancer has a negative systemic impact on its host in addition to its local or metastatic effects, and no cancer complication is more ubiquitous than anaemia, a condition for which there is now a specific remedy, the recombinant growth factor erythropoietin. This is not a trivial therapeutic consideration, because cancer-associated anaemia has an adverse influence on survival regardless of tumour type. However, the pharmacological correction of anaemia with recombinant erythropoietin could promote tumour growth, whereas the use of tumour-necrosis factor- (TNF) and TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand as antitumour agents could exacerbate anaemia, thereby perpetuating tissue hypoxia and tumour progression.

Author affiliations

1. Division of Hematology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21210, USA.
   Email: jlspivak@jhmi.edu

Published online 20 June 2005

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