the invention relates to negative functional modulators of erythropoietin for use in the treatment of cancers , in the therapy of autoimmune - based and non - autoimmune based chronic inflammatory diseases , and in the treatment of patients under - going organ or tissue transplant , or for the treatment of hemophilic arthropathy , hemophilia a and b , von willebrand disease , angiodysplasia , proliferative disorders and neurological diseases characterized in their pathogenesis by primary neuroinflammation and / or neuroinflammation secondary to other causes . such modulators are anti - epo antibodies and their derivatives : anti - epo receptor antibodies , antisense oligonucleotides , decoy dna , decoy rna , ribozyme , antagomir , shrna , lna and / or sirnas that inhibit the expression of the gene encoding epo or epor .