Safety of anaemia drug erythropoietin is to be reviewed

doi:10.1136/bmj.39146.387789.DB

BMJ 2007;334:495 (10 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.39146.387789.DB

News

Safety of anaemia drug erythropoietin is to be reviewed

Jeanne Lenzer

Boston

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Concerns about the safety of a class of drugs used to treatanaemia have triggered a federal alert in the United States.The alert comes after recent studies reported a higher incidenceof fatal cancers and cardiovascular events among patients whowere treated with drugs known as erythropoiesis stimulatingagents when the drugs were used to raise haemoglobin concentrationsto more than 120 g/l.

The US Food and Drug Administration issued the alert on 16 February,urging doctors "not to [give doses] to exceed haemoglobin levelsof 12 g/dl" when treating patients with anaemia resulting fromchronic renal failure, cancer or cancer chemotherapy, or HIVor AIDS.

The agency has scheduled an advisory committee meeting for 10May to assess the risks of the drugs, which include epoetinalfa (made by Ortho Biotech and sold in the US under the brandname Procrit and also by Amgen under the brand . . . [Full text of this article]

Add to CiteULike CiteULike Add to Complore Complore Add to Connotea Connotea Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us Add to Digg Digg Add to Reddit Reddit Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon Add to Technorati Technorati What's this?

Relevant Articles

FDA calls for warnings on anaemia drugs amid reports of incentives to doctors: Janice Hopkins Tanne
BMJ 2007 334: 1022. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

New York Times reveals payments to doctors by drug firms: David Spurgeon
BMJ 2007 334: 655. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

Minton, O., Richardson, A., Sharpe, M., Hotopf, M., Stone, P. (2008). A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Pharmacological Treatment of Cancer-Related Fatigue. JNCI J Natl Cancer Inst 100: 1155-1166 [Abstract] [Full text]