Background and objective: The treatment of chemotherapy associated anemia in patients with cancer has varied greatly in recent years. The objective of this study was to verify whether the most frequently used therapeutic schedules of erythropoietin administration demonstrate equivalent effectiveness.
Patients and method: Treatments corresponding to 1,103 patients with cancer receiving treatment with erythropoietic colony-stimulating factors from January 2003 to April 2006 were reviewed. After applying a selection algorithm, 170 cases were analysed: 55 treated with epoetin alpha 10,000 IU 3 times per week, 63 receiving darbepoetin alpha 150 microg weekly and 52 treated with darbepoetin alpha 500 microg every 3 weeks. The main variables used to compare effectiveness were the increase in serum hemoglobin levels during treatment and the percentage of patients with hemoglobin values > or = 120 g/l.
Results: The differences in maximum hemoglobin values achieved at baseline and during the study period, and those between the final and baseline hemoglobin values were similar in the 3 groups. The percentage of patients with hemoglobin values > or = 120 g/l during and at the end of treatment was equivalent for the group receiving epoetin alpha 10,000 IU three times per week and darbepoetin alpha 150 microg per week. However this parameter war inferior for the group treated with darbepoetin alpha 500 microg every 3 weeks.
Conclusions: Epoetin alpha 10,000 IU 3 times per week was found to be as effective as darbepoetin alpha 150 microg per week in all the studied parameters, while darbepoetin alpha 500 microg every 3 weeks was not in one of them.