Do you check EPO levels in patients with anemia of chronic kidney disease?

No, I never check EPO levels in patients with anemia of CKD since they're uninterpretable. Patients with CKD have inadequate EPO synthesis for their degree of anemia, so their EPO levels may be greater than normal yet still not sufficient to correct the anemia. We now understand the role of inflamma...

Never.

Anemia in CKD is as much resistance from a uremic bone marrow than EPO deficiency. We give pharmacologic doses, not replacement doses, to overcome this uremic resistance.