Q J Med 2003; 96: 775-776
© 2003 Association of Physicians
Correspondence |
Another cause of anaemia
| The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below. |
Sir,
Renal impairment is commonly associated with normocytic anaemia, due to relative deficiency of erythropoietin, and it is now standard practice to treat this with recombinant human erythropoietin (r-HuEPO) once other causes of anaemia have been excluded. Recurrent anaemia in this setting may be due to occult gastrointestinal blood loss, and this is the most common cause of anaemia, but pure red cell aplasia (PRCA) secondary to an antibody to human recombinant erythropoietin also needs to
Department of Medicine The Princess Royal Hospital Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Haywards Heath Dr Radunovic is now at the Department of Neurology, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London. e-mail: a.radunovic@iop.kcl.ac.uk