The Metabolism of Erythropoietin in Patients with Anemia Due to Deficient Erythropoiesis*

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Abstract
Transfusions sufficient to raise the hemoglobin to nearly normal values were given to 8 patients with reduced or absent erythropoiesis in order to study the kinetics of disappearance of erythropoietin from the serum. In all studies, the graph of erythropoietin titer against time is best approximated by a single exponential function. The mean half-time of survival of erythropoietin in the serum was 24.9 hours (range, 6.6 to 42.6 hours). The renal clearance of erythropoietin ranged between 0.06 and 0.67 ml per minute. The report discusses the implications of the persisting erythropoietin in the serum for the understanding of the kinetics of erythropoiesis.