The effect of erythropoietin on cardiac and neurotoxicity induced by carbon monoxide poisoning

Carbon monoxide (CO) intoxication is one of the most important poisonings related to high morbidity and mortality rate. The main treatment of CO poisoning is oxygen therapy using normobaric (NBO) or hyperbaric oxygen (HBO). However, more pharmaceutical agents are needed to improve CO poisoning treatment, especially in severe cases. Recently, erythropoietin (EPO) has been examined in several studies, showing a significant reduction in cardiac and neural sequels of CO poisoning.In this article, the effect of EPO on cardio and neurotoxicity of CO poisoning were reviewed. For this purpose, EPO effect on CO poisoning was searched in papers published until 2020 using Pubmed, Scopus, and google scholar. Only English papers on three main databases have been reviewed. The review of several animal and clinical studies have been shown that EPO administration after CO poisoning could improve neurological function and reduce CO-neurotoxicity significantly. Although there is good evidence of EPO effects on CO-induced-neurological sequelae, further clinical studies are needed to establish its benefit on CO intoxication.