Anemia of chronic disease laboratory findings
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
Laboratory Findings
Anemia of chronic disease is often a mild normocytic anemia, but can sometimes be more severe, and can sometimes be a microcytic anemia; thus, it often closely resembles iron-deficiency anemia. Indeed, many people with chronic disease can also be genuinely iron deficient, and the combination of the two causes of anemia can produce a more severe anemia. As with iron deficiency, anemia of chronic disease is a problem of red cell production. Therefore, both conditions show a low reticulocyte production index, suggesting that reticulocyte production is impaired and not enough to compensate for the decreased red blood cell count.
While no single test is always reliable to distinguish the two causes of disease, there are sometimes some suggestive data:
- In anemia of chronic disease without iron deficiency, ferritin levels should be normal or high, reflecting the fact that iron is stored within cells, and ferritin is being produced as an acute phase reactant but the cells are not releasing their iron. In iron deficiency anemia ferritin should be low.
- TIBC should be high in genuine iron deficiency, reflecting efforts by the body to produce more transferrin and bind up as much iron as possible; TIBC should be low or normal in anemia of chronic disease.
If the importance of hepcidin in this condition is borne out, tests to measure hepcidin or cellular expression of ferroportin may one day be useful, but neither are available as validated clinical assays.
Examination of the bone marrow to look for the absence or presence of iron, or a trial of iron supplementation (pure iron deficiency anemia should improve markedly in response to iron, while anemia of chronic disease will not) can provide more definitive diagnoses.