RESUMO
Disturbances of the iron metabolism in patients with chronic alcohol abuse are of very complex genesis. The frequently probable hypersideraemia is caused by an increased intake of iron, by release of depot iron, when an alcohol-conditioned liver damage is present, and by an increased iron balance with disturbed iron use of the bone marrow. Thus the in alcoholics often provable combined megaloblastic-sideroblastic anaemia is in close connection with this.
Assuntos
Alcoolismo/sangue , Ferro/sangue , Anemia Sideroblástica/sangue , Ferritinas/sangue , Humanos , Absorção Intestinal , Cinética , Hepatopatias Alcoólicas/sangue , Taxa de Depuração Metabólica , Transferrina/metabolismoRESUMO
Changes in all three blood cell systems could be covered in 50 patients treated in hospital for a high consumption of alcohol for years and even decades. There is no symptom which would be pathognomonic for alcoholism in itself. Macrocytosis and macrovoluminity of erythrocytes, hyper-sideraemia and thrombocytopenia were findings frequently encountered and easily to be identified. Megaloblasts, vacuolization, and an increase of sideroblasts could be observed in the bone-marrow. The prompt reversibility of these changes mentioned by simply abstaining from alcohol has a considerable diagnostic utility. The impact of liver damage partly produced by an accompanying spleen enlargement could only be ensured for thrombocyte depression. The increase of methaemoglobin which is unequivocal but without any clinical importance can also be reversed by alcohol deprivation. From a haematological point of view an alcoholic is endangered by a deficient immunological system. Haemorrhagic diatheses due to thrombocytopenia, thromboembolic complications during rebound-thrombocytosis and severe haemolyses can rarely be found.
