Serum erythropoietin level in anemia of chronic kidney disease - experience of a Romanian medical centre / Nivelul eritropoietinei serice în anemia din boala renală cronică - experiența unui centru medical românesc

In this study, different aspects of anemia in chronic kidney disease have been observed, starting from the fact that the severity of anemia is associated with the degree of kidney dysfunction, the main cause being the erythropoietin deficiency, which is synthesized mostly by the kidneys. 58 persons were included in this study, 19 patients with non-dialysis-dependent chronic kidney disease, 18 patients with chronic kidney disease who received kidney transplantation and 21 apparently healthy persons. We evaluated the serum level of erythropoietin, serum creatinine, proteinuria, the glomerular filtration rate, the erythrocyte parameters and the correlations between them. The prevalence of anemia in patients with chronic kidney disease was of 51.35%. The hemoglobin concentration in patients with kidney transplantation (12.4 ± 2.7 g/dL) and in non-dialysis-dependent patients (11.7 ± 1.4 g/dL) is significantly different compared to the apparently healthy persons (14.6 ± 0.8 g/dL) (p<0.05). In the case of the non-dialysis-dependent patients who were not treated with erythropoiesis- stimulating agents we found positive associations between the glomerular filtration rate and the number of erythocytes (r = 0.71), hemoglobin (r = 0.65) and hematocrit (r = 0.73), as well as negative associations between creatinine and the number of erythrocytes (r = -0.72), hemoglobin (r = -0.86) and hematocrit (r = -0.88). In patients with kidney transplantation and anemia we observed positive correlations between erythropoietin and the number of erythrocytes (r = 0.69), between the glomerular filtration rate and the number of erythrocytes (r = 0.78) and erythropoietin (r = 0.97), as well as negative correlations between proteinuria and the number of erythrocytes (r= -0.89), hemoglobin (r= -0.72), hematocrit (r = -0.72), and erythropoietin (r = -0.67), and between creatinine and the number of erythrocytes (r = -0.75) and erythropoietin (r = -0.86).