Patients Previously Transfused or Treated with Epoetin Alfa at Low Baseline Hemoglobin Are at Higher Risk for Subsequent Transfusion: An Integrated Analysis of the Canadian Experience

Background. The introduction of recombinant human erythropoietin to the management of anemia in cancer patients has resulted in significant reductions in allogeneic blood transfusions, while at the same time contributing to improvements in quality of life. A recent metaanalysis of five randomized, placebo-controlled trials with patient-level data revealed that, while epoetin alfa was very effective in reducing transfusions compared with placebo, patients who were pretransfused were tce asikelo susqne trnued dun ep