Targeting Anemia with Erythropoietin during Critical Illness

Abstract

The overall goals of clinical research in the intensive care unit (ICU) are to improve clinical outcomes through enhanced understanding of how critical illness develops and how such illness is best prevented, diagnosed, treated, or palliated. Several “normal” physiological measurements and laboratory values have been abandoned as therapeutic targets during critical illness, since in some randomized trials, attempts to normalize these measurements and values have shown either harm or no benefit with respect to clinical outcomes.