cancer-associated anemia
Cancer has a negative systemic impact on its host in addition to its local or metastatic effects, and no cancer complication is more ubiquitous than anaemia, a condition for which there is now a specific remedy, the recombinant growth factor erythropoietin.
Cancer-associated anemia has an adverse influence on survival regardless of tumour type. The pharmacological correction of anaemia with recombinant erythropoietin could promote tumour growth, whereas the use of tumour-necrosis factor-alpha (TNFalpha) and TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand as antitumour agents could exacerbate anaemia, thereby perpetuating tissue hypoxia and tumour progression.
References
Spivak JL. The anaemia of cancer: death by a thousand cuts. Nat Rev Cancer. 2005 Jul;5(7):543-55. PMID: 15965494