Erythropoietin(6000u) Injection

Dear all,

Does anybody knows any information about Erythropoietin(6000u) Injection

My daughter is offtransfusion since last 1.5 yrs and maintaining her Hb around 8 to 8.5, she is under the treatment of Dr Ramanan and has currently taking Hydrea, Thallide and Wheat grass tablets. But her last Hb (1st June) is 6.9 so Dr advised to do course of 4 above mentioned injections,


I request u all if anybody has any information, please share

Warm Regards

SARIKA M, Pune

Is your daughter a Thal Major? Thal Majors either can't create the beta or alpha globin chains necessary for building regular red blood cells. Erythropoietin is a hormone that tells the body to produce those, but it doesn't help to increase the production if the produced red blood cells aren't functional/stable anyways.

The fact that her Hb is above 8 without transfusion does show she produces a fair amount of good red blood cells. EPO does help in some cases, but trying it is the only way to know if it will work.

she produces a fair amount of good red blood cells.

So this is possible with Thal Major? Does that mean there are Majors who are not tranfusion-dependent? 

Thanks Andy,

1st dose is given on Saturday, Let's hope for the best..

Dear Andy,

She is 6.5 yes old . Are there any side effects of this?

msarika, most of the possible side effect occur soon after taking the drug. As with hydrea, most patients don't get ant serious side effects.

sofear, it depends on how thal major is defined. I really think we need a new classification system. Dr Ramanan reports that his methods are not likely to work on patients who transfused before one year old. These would mostly be beta zero majors. Those with beta+ mutations are more likely to transfuse later than one year and also have a higher baseline Hb than beta zero patients. But they do transfuse regularly. So, they may include those who would be considered transfusing intermedia and also those who would have to be called thal majors, but whose Hb would not go as low without transfusion as beta zeroes would.

How is your daughter now, Sarika. I hope, she is better now. Pl. reply.

Hi all,

There is no any positive or negative effects happened after the course, HB is stable...