Outcomes of extremely low birth weight infants given early high-dose erythropoietin

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.