Circulating erythroid progenitors in the anemia of prematurity.

We studied erythropoiesis in infants with the anemia of prematurity by counting the number of colonies derived from erythroid burst-forming units (BFU-E) in the blood of 11 premature infants before they received transfusions. Colony growth in blood from the infants was compared with growth in blood from adults and umbilical-cord blood from term infants, in the presence of erythropoietin, 0 to 2000 mU per milliliter. Addition of increasing concentrations of erythropoietin resulted in a stepwise increase in the number of colonies derived from BFU-E (P less than 0.0005) of all three groups of subjects. Cultures stimulated with 2000 mU of erythropoietin yielded 28.1 +/- 7.6, 88.0 +/- 19.4, and 121.0 +/- 22.5 bursts (mean +/- SE) per 10(5) cells plated in blood from adults, blood from premature infants, and cord blood, respectively. Although more BFU-E-derived colonies appeared when 200 or 2000 mU were present per milliliter in cultures of the infants' blood and cord blood, the intrinsic responsiveness of BFU-E to erythropoietin was similar in all groups. Although the mean hematocrit was 26 percent, mean serum erythropoietin concentrations (+/- SD) in the infants (20.7 +/- 10.0 mU per milliliter) were not significantly different from those in the adult controls (24.0 +/- 6.5). We conclude that progenitor cells committed to erythroid differentiation are present during the anemia of prematurity, and that the intrinsic responsiveness of the circulating BFU-E pool to erythropoietin is normal. These results implicate inadequate production of erythropoietin as the cause of the anemia of prematurity and suggest that recombinant erythropoietin might provide a therapeutic alternative to transfusion for symptomatic babies with this condition.