A new study reveals that utilizing several anemia drugs augments the risks in cancer patients; in consequence, boosts the chances of developing potentially fatal blood clots in the lungs and legs.

It states the risks of the drugs commonly prescribed to fight anemia – called erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs) – may increase the chances of death, stroke and new cancers.

ESAs used in US since 1991, work by stimulating bone marrow to produce more red blood cells in the body. Thus it is found that continued usage of drugs do not reduce the numbers of transfusions.

"These drugs hit the market in the mid-1990s, and by 2002, 50 percent of patients on chemotherapy were receiving them. Right from the beginning, there was concern that these drugs would cause some side effects, but the initial studies did not find any risk of thrombosis. We confirmed that these agents can increase the risk of thrombosis by twofold”, said Dr. Dawn Hershman, co- director of the breast program at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

The study was conducted by collecting the data on 56,210 cancer patients treated with chemotherapy from 1991 through 2002. Hershman's team reported that 15,346 of these patients also received ESAs and found 14.3 percent of patients receiving ESAs developed thromboembolism compared with 9.8 percent of those who did not receive it.

For further protection the CMS would solicit an advisory panel in August for contribution on the utilization of ESAs in patients with chronic kidney disease and in consequence committee is predictable to meet in March 2010.