A clinical study was carried out in 28 patients receiving hemodialysis for at least more than 6 months to determine the effect of nandrolone decanoate in the anemia of chronic renal failure. Hemoglobin, hematocrit, packed red cell volume were all significantly increased (p<0.05) by the end of 3 months, and highy significantly (p<0.01) by the end of 6 months treatment of nandroloen decanoate. The mean transfusion requirement significiantly fell (p<0.01) from 0.8 to 0.3 units per patients per month during the androgen treatment.
The body weight and serum creatinine increased signficiantly after 6 months tratment of androgen, but the BUN and blood pressure as well as serum iron, iron binding capacity, serum ferritin did not change significantly.
Eight (38.1%) of the 21 patients completed study had a greater than 20% increase in hematocrit value after 6 months of therapy. Clinical response to androgen therapy could not be predicted on the basis pretreatment clinical and laboratory findings.
Side effects associated with nandrolone decanoate treatment included deepending of vocie particulary in 6 female patients (26.8%), transient elevation of transaminase levels in 5 patients (23.5%), hirsutism in 2 patients (9.5%), and hematoma at injection site in 1 patient (4.8%). In conclusion, nandrolone decanoate appears to improve anemia in patients on maintenance hemodialysis. Most of the side effects were transient and mild in severity, but the frequent monitoring of liver function test required during androgen therapy.
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