Erythropoietin (Ep) is a glycoprotein hormone of mostly renal origin that stimulates red cell production in response to tissue hypoxia.
Serum Ep activities provide important clinical clues in making the differential diagnosis of some types of anemia and polycythemia.
The study was performed in order to evaluate the diagnostic value of serum Ep activities in 29 normal subjects, 43 anemic patients and 15 secondary polycythemia patients and to find out the relationship between hemoglobin concentration and serum Ep activities in these patients using the Enzyme Immunoassay with Second International Preparation for Ep.
The results obtained were as follows:
1. Ep activities in sera from 29 normal subjects among children ranged from 11 to 72 mU/ml, with a mean of 37.10 ± 16.54 mUlml.
There was no significant difference between the serum Ep activities in male and female subjects (p > 0.05).
2. Ep activities in sera from 22 patients with iron deficiency anemia ranged from 48 to 400 mU/ml, with a mean of 153.5 mU/ml which was about 4 times higher than normal value. Ep activities in sera from 18 anemic patients with acute infection ranged from 35 to 290 mU/ml, with a mean of 134.05 mU/ml which was about 3.5 times higher than normal value. Ep activities in sera from 3 patients with aplastic anemic ranged from 620 to 840 mU/mi, with a mean of 720 mU /ml which was about 20 times higher than normal value.
3. Ep activities in sera from 15 patients with secondary polycythemia ranged from 12 to 140 mU/ml. In 10 of 15 patients, the mean Ep activities was 87.50 ± 25.60 mU/ml, which was about 2 times higher than normal value. In 5 of 15 patients, Ep activities were within normal range as a mean of 35.80 ± 17.23 mU/ml.
In summary, a significant negative correlation was found between the hemo-globin concentration and the logarithm of the serum Ep activities in 43 patients with anemia (r = 0. 73, Y = 3.6766-0.1802x) and Ep activities in patients with aplastic anemia was higher than those in patients with iron deficiency anemia at comparable hemoglobin concentration.
From the above results, it was concluded that serum Ep activities in anemic pa-tients are not only inversely related to the hemoglobin concentration but also to the activity of the erythroid bone marrow.
While no significant correlation was found between hemoglobin concentration, hematocrit percentages and Ep activities in 1.5 patients with secondary polycythemia (r = 0. 18, 0.39 respectively).
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