Publication Date:
2015-12-03
Description:
Introduction Iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) and anaemia of chronic inflammation (AI) are the most prevalent causes of iron related anaemia in subjects with gastrointestinal disorders contributing significantly to morbidity and mortality. Diagnosis of IDA and AI is not always straight forward and currently a combination of several serum parameters (ferritin, transferrin, transferrin saturation, iron and C-reactive protein) is required. Subjects with a mixed aetiology can be difficult to interpret using traditional serum parameters, particularly in the presence of an inflammatory process. Hepcidin (a 25 amino-acid peptide hormone) in conjunction with reticulocyte haemoglobin equivalent (RetHe) has the potential to differentiate IDA from AI and in cases of mixed aetiology replacing the traditional laboratory parameters (serum iron, CRP, transferrin saturation and ferritin). Aim The aim of the study was to evaluate the performance of a commercially available ELISA assay and investigate whether hepcidin and RetHe can differentiate AI from mixed aetiology. Method The study investigated 77 patients with gastrointestinal disorders associated with anaemia in a secondary care setting using a traditional pathway of 6 tests (figure 1): Complete Blood Count (CBC), Reticulocytes, serum ferritin, CRP, transferrin, serum Iron. Hepcidin concentration was measured using a commercially available ELISA method (DRG Diagnostic GmbH, Marburg, Germany), CBC and RetHe using a Sysmex XE-2100 CBC analyser, iron parameters and CRP using Beckman Coulter platforms. Results Hepcidin correlated well with ferritin R2 = 0.79, p
Print ISSN:
0006-4971
Electronic ISSN:
1528-0020
Topics:
Biology
,
Medicine
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