Evaluación del uso de epoetinas en pacientes oncohematológicos

Objective: To evaluate the use and the efficacy of erythropoietic agents in a general hospital. Methods: Study of 105 oncohematologic patients that underwent chemotherapy and under treatment of epoetin-alpha/darbepoetin-alpha between January/2002 and August/2003. The initial hemoglobin and the treatment algorithm errors were analyzed. Efficacy criteria: complete response by reaching 12 g/dl or an increment > 2g/dl in hemoglobin levels. Results: In 81.7% of cases the treatment was started with Hb < 10.5 g/dl. In 66.6%, some type of usage error occurred. Most frequent errors: dosage not doubled at 4 weeks in non-respondents (38/40: 95%) and error in dosage adjustment (29/44: 65.9%). Efficacy: complete response in 56.2% of cases. Conclusions: Similar efficacy to the published in the literature (40-80%). Frequent errors in the fulfillment of the drug use algorithm were observed. The utility of this study is for optimizing their use and, probably, improve their efficacy