There was significantly greater deterioration of retinopathy at 1 year in the patients who had received erythropoietin (P = 0.004). Although the presence of retinopathy at ESRD correlated with known traditional risk factors such as years of diabetes, age, and serum cholesterol, the deterioration of retinopathy after the initiation of hemodialysis correlated only with hematocrit (P = 0.042) and most significantly total dose of erythropoietin (P = 0.001).