San Diego, CA - Treating anemia using darbepoetin alfa (Aranesp, Amgen) has no effect on death or cardiovascular events or death or renal events, in diabetic patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and anemia, results from the Trial to Reduce Cardiovascular Events With Aranesp Therapy (TREAT) show. The only prespecified end point to demonstrate a striking difference was stroke, which was actually twice as high in patients who received darbepoetin alfa, Dr Marc Pfeffer (Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA) told a late-breaking clinical-trial session at the American Society of Nephrology Renal Week. In a surprise finding, there were no clinically meaningful differences in the major quality-of-life measure in the study, a fatigue score, between the active and placebo groups. Read full article »