"Two bloodbuilding drugs injected soon after birth may give tiny preemies a lasting longterm edge boosting brain development and IQ by age  a firstofitskind study found.  The study was small but the implications are big if larger longer studies prove the drugs help even the playing field for these atrisk children the researchers and other experts say.  Babies who got the medicine scored much better by age  on measures of intelligence language and memory than preemies who didnt get it. The medicine groups scores on an important behavior measure were just as good as a control group of yearolds born on time at a normal weight.  The results are super exciting said Dr. Robin Ohls the lead author and a pediatrics professor at the University of New Mexico. She said its the first evidence of longterm benefits of the drugs when compared to no bloodboosting treatment.  Even though the treated youngsters didnt do as well as the normalweight group on most measures their scores were impressive and suggest greater brain development than the other preemies Ohls said.  They scored about  points higher on average on IQ tests than the untreated kids but about  points lower than the normalweight group. On tests measuring memory and impulsive behavior the treated kids fared as well as those born at normal weight.  Heres how those differences would show up in a preschool setting The untreated group would be the kids who struggle a little in class while those who got the medicines would do OK but not as well as those born at a normal weight said Dr. Michael Schreiber a prematurity expert at the University of Chicagos Comer Childrens Hospital.  Survival of extremely tiny preemies has improved dramatically in the past  years but treatment for medical problems and developmental delays linked with prematurity has not kept pace Schreiber said. He was not involved in the study.  He said larger studies including more diverse patient populations are needed to determine if the drugs can help a broader range of preemies.  The study involved  children most white or Hispanic born more than a month premature and weighing less than  pounds at hospitals in New Mexico Utah and Colorado. Two dozen normalweight children were also included.  Results were published Monday in Pediatrics.  Shortly after birth the preemies were randomly assigned to receive injections of either erythropoeitin EPO three times weekly darbepoetin once a week for several weeks or no treatment. The drugs build red blood cells and are approved to treat anemia caused by cancer treatment or resulting from other conditions.  Preemies lack the ability to make new red blood cells and often need frequent blood transfusions to replace blood taken for lab tests. The drugs are now sometimes used to try to reduce their need for transfusions in doses similar to the ones studied.  The drugs can increase endurance by boosting oxygen levels in the blood and have been implicated in some sports doping scandals."