Does Erythropoietin Improve Neurological Outcome in Patients with Brain Injury?

Trauma is considered one of the leading cause of death in patients younger than 44 in the U.S. and one of the top five causes for those older than 45. Anemia is a common complication of patients with severe head injury. Treatment of anemia may be done with packed red blood cells or erythropoietin. In experimental models, outcome after brain injury can be improved with erythropoietin through neuroprotective mechanisms. Researchers conducted this double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of erythropoietin in traumatic brain injury in 29 centers in seven countries. The 596 patients were enrolled within 24 hours of brain injury and randomly assigned to erythropoietin (n=302) or placebo (n=294) after stratification by severity of brain injury (mode…