Hi Beth,
I won't go into great detail here as I have posted numerous times regarding the huge success my husband has had in a clinical trial at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. He started in their Promacta (Eltrombopag) clinical trial in March, 2011. The trial is to see if it would increase platelets for MDS patients which he has and they also have a Promacta trial for AA patients as well. He has only had one red cell transfusion since. He had been transfusion dependent since 1/09 for red cells and especially platelets - around 55 to 60 transfusions in both '09 and '10. Please check out my posts under "Clinical Trials" and various other responses to posts such as yours. The Promacta is to increase platelets but, as with their AA patients, it has brought up his red cells as well. I have included the NIH contact information in some of my posts. He has tolerated it extremely well and I can't say enough about how wonderful NIH and their doctors and nurses are.
Please feel free to e-mail me directly if you have any questions.
shcalvert3@aol.com.
Good luck and God Bless,
Sally