EPO and Thrombocytosis: Taken together, it is tempting to speculate that elevated erythropoietin levels in patients with iron-deficiency anemia lead to thrombocytosis as a result of some kind of cross-reactivity at the level of the thrombopoietin receptor c-mpl because of the homology of some amino acid sequences of erythropoietin to thrombopoietin [8].