Anemia Treatments Don't Boost Recovery From Brain Injury, Study Finds

By Amy Norton HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, July 1, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- People who suffer a severe head injury often develop anemia, but aggressively treating the blood condition may do more harm than good, a new clinical trial suggests.

Experts said the findings, reported July 2 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, were disappointing: Treating anemia with blood transfusions -- and in some cases, the medication erythropoietin -- did nothing to improve brain-injured patients' long-term recovery.

And when transfusions were used more aggressively, the risk of blood clots increased.

Lead researcher Dr. Claudia Robertson said the results "will probably change clinical practice."

Anemia is a condition in which the body has too few oxygen-carrying red blood cells. It's common for people with serious traumatic injuries to develop anemia, because of internal and external bleeding and other damage to the body.

In trauma victims without a brain injury, doctors normally give a transfusion of red blood cells after the patient's hemoglobin levels fall below 7 grams per deciliter (g/dL), explained Robertson, a neurosurgeon at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

But, she said, there has been "controversy" over what's best for brain-injured patients.

Hemoglobin is the oxygen-carrying protein in red blood cells, and a healthy person typically has a level of about 15 g/dL, Robertson noted. Doctors have worried that in patients with serious brain injuries, allowing hemoglobin to drop to 7 g/dL or lower could be harmful -- so they often aim for higher levels.

"Red blood cells carry oxygen to the brain," Robertson said. "So the thinking is, more oxygen is better."

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Anemia Treatments Don't Boost Recovery From Brain Injury, Study Finds