You likely prescribe erythropoietin or roxadustat routinely to manage anemia in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) on hemodialysis—but which is truly safer? Despite widespread use, robust comparative data on their cardiovascular safety remain limited. To address this gap, a large retrospective cohort study evaluated outcomes in 40,324 patients with stage G5 CKD and anemia. After propensity score matching, erythropoietin was associated with significantly lower rates of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) compared to roxadustat at 6 months (13.4% vs 21.2%) and 12 months (17.0% vs 24.0%), as well as within 3 months of dialysis initiation (12.9% vs 28.7%).
Cardio-cerebrovascular events were also lower with erythropoietin at 6 months (38.5% vs 50.7%) and 12 months (49.1% vs 56.2%). Thromboembolic event rates were similar between groups. These findings suggest that peridialytic…
