تشخيص عوز الحديد لدى الرضع بقياس محتوىالشبكات من الهيموغلوبين و مقارنته بالمناسب الدموية و الكيميائية الحيوية التقليدية

Abstract EN

Background : iron deficiency (ID) is the most common and widespread nutrient deficiency.

infants >4 months old are considered a high-risk group.

until recently, ID diagnosis was reached based on a set of conventional haematological and biochemical tests, which are mostly influenced by inflammation and infections, leading to ID masking and delay of treatment.

methods : we evaluated the performance of common iron markers compared to reticulocyte content of hemoglobin (CHr) as the reference index approved for the diagnosis of ID in children.

the study was conducted in a cohort population of infants (n= 151) at the outpatient clinics of the Children’s Hospital-Damascus from 2012-2015.

results : CHr results revealed high prevalence (71%) of ID in the study infants, with 15.23% had latent ID and 56.30% had Iron deficiency anemia (IDA).

ferritin, serum iron, and total iron binding capacity (TIBC) had sensitivity of 56%, 62.86% and 62.07%, respectively, and specificity of 58%, 77.78%, and 60%, respectively for IDA diagnosis.

mean corpuscular haemoglobin (MCH) and mean corpuscular volume (MCV) showed the highest areas under the ROC curve (AUCROC) (0.94 and 0.92 respectively), and were the most sensitive (>84%) and specific (>85%) markers in detecting IDA.

however, all markers showed low to moderate sensitivity and specificity, and weak correlation with CHr, when evaluated to detect LID.

conclusions : our study proves a poor performance of the conventional iron markers for diagnosing LID and IDA, and suggests considering MCH as a screening, routine, simple, and low-cost guiding test for detection of ID in infants.