1 Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Muzaffarnagar Medical College, Muzajfarnagar, (U.P.)
2Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Muzaffarnagar Medical College, Muzajfarnagar, (U.P.)
3Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Muzaffarnagar Medical College, Muzajfarnagar, (U.P.)
To evaluate serum iron profile in anemia of infancy and childhood.
This cross sectional study comprised outpatients and inpatients anemic children aged from 6 months to 12 years in the Department of Pediatrics, Muzaffarnagar Medical College Muzaffarnagar, between 01 September 2014 and 31 March 2015. Comparison of Hemoglobin, Hematocrit, Serum Iron, Total Iron Binding Capacity and Serum Ferritin levels of 80 anemic patients was done with equal number of matching controls.
Anemic children had significant reduced iron stores (serum iron and ferritin levels) with increased TIBC when compared with controls. However, in the control group, there were 3 cases touching borderline serum ferritin levels, though showing normal levels of serum iron and TIBC.
Serum ferritin is an important tool to pick up latent iron deficiency and is more useful for evaluation of iron stores than serum iron and TIBC for detecting iron deficiency and even when the levels of these indices were normal, serum ferritin levels tend to be low, showing deficient or potentially deficient iron stores.
Anemia, Iron deficiency, Serum Iron, Serum Ferritin, TIBC
