Erythropoietin improves anemia exercise tolerance and renal function and reduces B-type natriuretic peptide and hospitalization in patients with heart failure and anemia

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of BNP (Nesiritide) in the context of anemia, published as a randomized controlled trial.

The present study examines, in patients with advanced congestive heart failure (CHF) and anemia, the effects of beta-erythropoietin (EPO) and oral iron on the anemia and on cardiac and renal functional parameters.

Why It Was Studied

However, it is uncertain whether the anemia is actually causing the worse prognosis or is merely a marker of more severe cardiac disease.

Previous intervention studies with subcutaneous (s.c.) beta-EPO in combination with iron have either been uncontrolled or case-controlled studies.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 20 patients taking part.

The age groups tagged for this paper are older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

They were randomized to receive, in a double-blind fashion, either (a) (group A, the treatment group, 20 patients) s.c. beta-EPO for 3 months twice weekly, in addition to daily oral iron, or (b) (group B, the placebo group, 20 patients) normal saline in s.c. injections and daily oral iron.

After the 3-months study, the group A patients were maintained on the same treatment for an additional 9 months, whereas in Group B, the placebo and oral iron were stopped.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

The patients were allocated by chance, so the BNP (Nesiritide) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Blinding on both sides kept the patients and researchers unaware of who received BNP (Nesiritide).

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the BNP (Nesiritide) group a baseline to be compared against.

A time span of 3 months appears in the methods.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Anaerobic Threshold, Anemia, Creatinine, Erythropoietin, Exercise Test, Heart Failure and Hemoglobins.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of BNP (Nesiritide) in 20 patients in people with anemia over 3 months.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Its findings take up roughly 5 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2006 (American heart journal), a journal based in United States.

More context: the BNP (Nesiritide) compound page, Anemia research.