Abstract
Objective:
To evaluate long-term outcomes of 60 extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants treated with or without three injections of high-dose erythropoietin (Epo).
Study Design:
A retrospective analysis of anthropometric and neurodevelopmental outcome data comparing 30 ELBW infants enrolled in a phase I/II study examining the pharmacokinetics of high-dose Epo (500, 1000 and 2500 U/kg × 3 doses) administered to 30 concurrent controls.
Result:
Birth characteristics and growth from 4 to 36 months were similar for untreated and Epo-treated patients. Multiple linear regression analysis of neurodevelopmental follow-up scores from 17/25 Epo-treated and 18/26 control infants identified that Epo correlated with improvement of cognitive (R=0.22, P=0.044) and motor (R=0.15, P=0.026) scores. No negative long-term effects of Epo treatment were evident.
Conclusion:
Retrospective analysis of the only available long-term follow-up data from ELBW infants given high-dose Epo treatment suggests that Epo treatment is safe and correlates with modest improvement of neurodevelopmental outcomes.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Marianne Bricker for help with data collection.
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McAdams, R., McPherson, R., Mayock, D. et al. Outcomes of extremely low birth weight infants given early high-dose erythropoietin. J Perinatol 33, 226–230 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/jp.2012.78
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/jp.2012.78
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