Razi Journal of Medical Sciences

    Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) drugs like captopril are proposed as a resistant factor against the effect of erythropoietin. As these groups are used as a choice to treat hypertension, so conducting more studies with regard to their effects on erythropoietin efficacy is important. This interventional study was performed on 19 patients with chronic hemodialysis. Patients were divided into two groups 9 cases received the low dose captopril (6.25% mg/daily) and 10 cases received high dose (25mg/TDS). None of the patients had any acute inflammatory or infectious process, iron deficiency and other causes of anemia at the time of study. They were followed for 3 months and their hematocrit was measured before intervention at the end of the first, the second and the third months. Erythropoietin dose was constant during 3 months. To analyse the data, Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney tests were used with the significant level of 5%. The mean of hematocrit changes in patients with low dose captopril was 1.1 in the first month with standard deviation (SD) of 3.07 (P=0.325), in the second month 1.46 with SD of 3.42 (P=0.27) and in the third month was 0.9 with SD of 4.44 (P=0.495). None of the changes was statistically significant. The mean of changes in cases with high dose captopril was 1.45 in the first month with SD of 3.76 (P=0.26), in the second month 1.40 with SD of 4.76 (P=0.528) and in the third month was 0.87 with SD of 4.79 (P=0.838). In this group, none of the changes was statistically significant. In conclusion, it seems captopril with high and low doses of treatment does not reduce hematocrit in the hemodialysis patients receiving the synthetic erythropoietin.