Outcomes of extremely low birth weight infants given early high-dose erythropoietin
Journal of Perinatology, 06/25/2012
McAdams RM et al. – Retrospective analysis of the only available long–term follow–up data from extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants given high–dose Epo treatment suggests that Epo treatment is safe and correlates with modest improvement of neurodevelopmental outcomes.
Methods- 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 administered to 30 concurrent controls.
- 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.
