Therapeutic Research

Abstract

Objective: This study assessed the subcutaneous（ sc） injection pain with a continuous erythropoietin receptor activato（r C.E.R.A.） and darbepoetin alfa（ DA） in Japanese peritoneal dialysis（PD） patients. Methods: C.E.R.A.（ 25, 50, 100, 150μg, 0.3mL）and DA（20, 40μg/1.0mL, 60, 120μg/0.6mL, 180μg/0.9mL） were subcutaneously injected to the PD patients, and assessed the pain with 100mm visual analog scale （VAS） and Wong –Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale （FS） immediately after each dosing. Results: Thirty PD patients who have been maintaining hemoglobin concentration （Hb） with DA were included to this study. VAS and FS score for immediately after sc injection were 29.7±23.7mm and 1.7±1.0 point in C.E.R.A., 50.9±22.8 mm and 2.6±1.1 point in DA respectively. C.E.R.A. was significantly less painful than DA in VAS（ p＝ 0.0002） and FS（ p＝ 0.0007）. Seventeen patients rated DA with higher FS score compared to C.E.R.A. The injection pain was not continued after one minute later in VAS in both. In terms of injection volume, only VAS for 0.9mL injection of DA significantly showed high values to C.E.R.A. and there was no statistically difference in FS distribution in DA volume. Conclusions: Sc injection of C.E.R.A. is less painful than sc injection of DA in PD patients.