What do you know about Procrit-related cancer deaths?
It’s very unfortunate that we’re only getting these data recently. And I understand that this brings back the painful memory of your mom’s ordeal with brain cancer. My two cents on this issue: Cancer is a hypercoagulable state. About half of patients die from thrombosis, even without giving them epoietin. To decrease the need for transfusions, epoietin can be given to anemic cancer patients, where anemia is due to the effect of concomitantly administered chemotherapy. I think this was the indication for your mom, so I believe that it was a correct call. It was made clear by the FDA last year that patients who are NOT receiving chemotherapy NOR radiation therapy should NOT be given epoietin. Also, it was recently discovered that there’s a different target hemoglobin level for each indication, above which complications and mortality rates increase, and therefore, epoietin should no longer be given at these hemoglobin levels. Medicine is a dynamic science. Through continuous research, we
