Soluble transferrin receptor and erythropoietin in chronic disease anemia with or without iron deficiency.

Soluble transferrin receptor and erythropoietin in chronic disease anemia w ith or without iron deficiency. The regulation of transferrin receptor (RTF ) is related to intracellular iron stores and with the soluble receptor is present in plasma. It has already been demonstrated that in iron deficiency anemia (IDA), receptor expression increases when iron stores decrease. In anemia of chronic diseases (ACD) it is difficult to establish the real iron status because of the influence exerted by inflammatory or infectious dise ases on iron metabolism. We studied 30 healthy normal subjects and 42 anemi c patients (hemoglobin less than 120 g/L) affected with ACID divided into t wo groups with and without iron deficiency, in order to establish the diagn ostic value of measuring the soluble transferrin receptor (sRTF). We correl ated erythropoietin (EPO) (as an erythropoietic stimulating factor) with th e decreased hemoglobin values observed in both groups. The results were ana lysed with an ANOVA statistic test of one way analysis of variance, and the re were no significant differences in sRTF values between the ACID groups w ith or without iron deficiency. The ratio log EPO vs hemoglobin showed a re markably significant inverse correlation in both groups. We can conclude th at sRTF levels are within the normal reference values in these patients and are not related to organic iron. Consequently, sRTF cannot be considered a good parameter for making a diagnosis of iron deficiency in chronic diseas es.