Abstract
Serum erythropoietin levels of various anemic patients, polycythemic and anemic rabbits were determined by Fried's, Matoth's and Krantz's method. No discrepancy of the results in accordance with these three methods was obtained in all cases except for aplastic anemia, in which the erythropoietin activities were found to be elevated by Fried's method, while lowered by both Matoth's and Krantz's method.
The responses of the bone marrow cells of patients with aplastic anemia to the sera from (a) normal volunteers, (b) patients with chronic bleeding and (c) patients with aplastic anemia were studied by Krantz's method. The heme Fe59 synthesis was increased when cultured with serum (b), but decrease with serum (c). These responses were almost epual to those seen in normal bone marrow cell cultures.
Parenteral administration of erythropoietin-rich plasma obtained from patients with chronic bleeding resulted in apparent increase of erythroid series in most cases with aplastic anemia, while administration of normal plasma showed no favorable effects.
The role of erythropoietin in aplastic anemia was discussed.
