-
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
The effects of epoetin alfa on transfusion requirements in head and neck cancer patients: a prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled study.
- Shaun N Scott, Thomas J Boeve, Timothy M McCulloch, Kari A Fitzpatrick, and Lucy H Karnell.
- Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, U.S.A.
- Laryngoscope. 2002 Jul 1; 112 (7 Pt 1): 1221-9.
ObjectiveTo evaluate the efficacy of perioperative recombinant human erythropoietin (r-HuEPO, epoetin alfa) in stimulating hematopoiesis and reducing allogeneic blood transfusion requirements in major head and neck cancer surgery.Study DesignDouble-blinded, placebo-controlled, randomized, prospective clinical trial.MethodsFifty-eight patients undergoing surgical resection of head and neck tumors at the University of Iowa hospitals completed this study. Patients were required to have a pre-study hemoglobin >/=10.0 g/dL and =13.5 g/dL. Group 1 (29 patients) received three doses of 600 IU/kg epoetin alfa before surgery. Group 2 (29 patients) received a placebo. All patients received oral iron supplementation (150 mg FeSO4 twice per day).ResultsThe epoetin alfa group demonstrated a significant increase in baseline to day-of-surgery mean hemoglobin (0.57 g/dL, P =.016), hematocrit (2.04%, P =.015), and reticulocyte count (95.3 x 103 cells/mm3, P = <.001), whereas there was no significant change in these hematologic variables in the placebo group. The percent of patients who avoided transfusion in the epoetin alfa group was 34.5% versus 17.2% in the placebo group. Patients requiring allogeneic blood transfusions received an average of 3.16 units in the epoetin alfa group and 4.12 units in the placebo group.ConclusionIn this single institution study, we demonstrated a significant improvement in hematopoietic parameters and a trend toward decreased transfusion requirements using perioperative epoetin alfa in a head and neck cancer patient population. Further studies may delineate additional benefits in treating qualified patients with epoetin alfa during therapy for head and neck malignancies.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*
,_underline_
or**bold**
. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>
and subscript<sub>text</sub>
. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3.
, hyphens-
or asterisks*
. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
- Images can be included with:
![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
- For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)
inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]
to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote.
.