Aetiological Profile of Anaemia in Elderly at a Tertiary Care Centre

Anaemia is a common clinical condition in elderly commonly associated with increased morbidity and mortality, increased hospitalization, decreased physical performance, loss of mobility and disability at higher rates than those people without anaemia. The present study was undertaken to assess the aetiological profile of anaemia in elderly. METHODSA cross sectional study was done among elderly patients with anaemia admitted in general medicine department and / or attending general medicine OPD, IGIMS, Patna, Bihar. 100 consecutive patients were selected as per inclusion and exclusion criteria. The patients were subjected to a thorough clinical examination and investigation, and data was analysed. RESULTSAnaemia is more common in males with a male to female ratio of 2.84:1. Maximum numbers of cases was in the age range of 61 to 70 comprising 70 % followed by 23 % in 71 to 80 years age group and 6 % in 81 to 90 years age group. Weakness was the most common presentation comprising 74 % cases. Comorbidities in patients along with anaemia were solid malignancy in 5 %, diabetes mellitus (DM) in 7 %, hypertension (HT) in 6 %, chronic kidney disease (CKD) in 5 %, cor pulmonale in 3 % and hypothyroidism in 1 %. 48 % patients were having moderate anaemia and 45 % patients were having severe anaemia. Morphologically most common variety of anaemia was normocytic normochromic contributing 57 % of the patients. Bone marrow examination done in 62 cases revealed hyper cellular marrow in 27, normocellular in 24, hypo cellular marrow in 6 and mildly hyper cellular to normocellular in 5 cases. Aetiological distribution showed 14 % of anaemia of chronic disease (ACD) and 14 % due to vitamin B12 deficiency. This was closely followed by iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) in 13 % cases. CONCLUSIONSAnaemia in elderly is a common clinical condition commonly presenting with nonspecific symptom. Normocytic normochromic anaemia is the most common morphological type of anaemia with various underlying treatable aetiologies.