Dr. Swedberg cautioned against extrapolating the lack of benefit from darbepoetin in this patient population to other types of patients with anemia.
"I would be very careful to extend our findings to other situations because heart failure is a very special situation, with a lot of neurohormonal activation on top of other effects on the cardiorenal axis," he said. In addition, he stressed that the findings should not dissuade clinicians from administering an erythropoiesis-stimulating agent to patients with systolic heart failure and more severe anemia.
The RED-HF study was sponsored by Amgen, the company that market darbepoetin alfa (Aranesp). Dr. Swedberg said that he has been a consultant to and lecturer on behalf of Amgen as well as Novartis and Servier.