Anemia management in haemodialysis. EuCliD database in Spain

: We present the results on Anaemia Management in Fresenius Medical Care Spain dialysis centres as reported by EuCliD (European Clinical Database), evaluating a population of 4,426 patients treated in Spain during the year 2001. To analyse the erythropoietin dose and the haemoglobin levels we divided the population in two groups according to the time with dialysis treatment: patients treated less than six months and patients between six months, and four years on therapy. We compared our results with the evidence based recommendations Guidelines: the European Best Practice Guidelines (EBPG) and the US National Kidney Foundation (NKF-K/DOQI). We also compared our results with those presented by the ESAM2 on 2,618 patients on dialysis in Spain carried out in the second half of the year 2000. We observed that 70% of the population reaches an haemoglobin value higher that 11 g/dl, with a mean erythropoietin (rHu-EPO) dose of 111.9 Ul/kg weight/week (n = 3,700; SD 74.9). However, for those patients on treatment for less than six months, the mean Haemoglobin only reaches 10.65 g/dl (n = 222; SD 1.4). The rHu-EPO was administrated subcutaneously in 70.2% of the patients. About the iron therapy, 86% of the patients received iron treatment and the administration route was intravenous in 93% of the population. The ferritin levels were below 100 micrograms/dl in 10% of the patients and 26.4% showed a transferrin saturation index (TSAT) below 20%. The erythropoieting resistance index (ERI), as rHu-EPO/haemoglobin, has been used to evaluate the response to rHu-Epo, according to different variables. It was observed that the following factors lead to a higher rHu-EPO resistance: intravenous rHu-EPO as administration route, the presence of hypoalbuminemia, increase of protein C reactive, Transferrin saturation below 20% and starting dialysis during the last six months.