Iron deficiency in Yemeni patients with sickle-cell disease

ABSTRACT

Despite the general view that patients with sickle-cell disease [SCO] have iron overload, there are reports of iron deficiency in a proportion of these patients. We studied Yemeni patients aged 1-30 years with homozygous SCD to determine their iron status using a set of 4 criteria [low serum iron, low transferrin saturation, high total iron binding capacity and low mean corpuscular volume for age]. Of the 75 patients, 44 had never been transfused while 31 patients had received blood transfusions but not during the 3-month period prior to the study. Of the patients, 10 [13.3%] met the criteria for iron deficiency, 9 of whom were from the non-transfused patients [20.5%]. The sensitivity and specificity were 40% and 98% respectively for reticulocyte count and 80% and 90% respectively for reticulocyte index. We recommend screening non-transfused SCD patients for iron deficiency