Underestimation of the coexistence of iron deficiencies and thalassemia minors: a single institution experience in Taiwan

Autor: Chung-King Lin, Ling-Ping Chen, Hsiu-Lin Chang, Yung-Chuan Sung
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2014
Předmět:
Zdroj: Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences, Vol 30, Iss 8, Pp 409-414 (2014)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1607-551X
DOI: 10.1016/j.kjms.2014.03.010
Popis: Some physicians neglect the possible coexistence of an iron deficiency with a thalassemia minor and do not treat the iron deficiency accordingly. This motivated us to conduct this study. We retrospectively reviewed the records of 3892 patients who visited our clinics and had hemoglobin (Hb) electrophoreses performed in our hematologic laboratory from August 1, 2007 to December 31, 2012. The thalassemia minors were identified by characteristic complete blood count (CBC) parameters obtained from an autoanalyzer and Hb electrophoresis, and some cases were confirmed with molecular tests. Then, we checked iron studies [ferritin and/or serum iron with total iron-binding capacity (TIBC)] to determine the coexistence of an iron deficiency with a thalassemia minor and a response to iron, if such treatments were given. We found 792 cases with thalassemia minors, and excluded those without iron studies, with 661 cases as our sample. A total of 202/661 cases (31%) also had iron deficiencies. They had lower red blood cell (RBC) counts, Hb, and ferritin levels as compared to those thalassemia minor cases without coexistence of iron deficiencies. We concluded that the thalassemia minor patients did not have iron overload complications in our population. On the contrary, iron deficiencies commonly coexist in the clinical visits. We propose that if Hb
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