Hypoferritinemia in anemic patients attending a tertiary hospital in Maiduguri, Nigeria

It has been reported that over one-quarter of the world population is anemic and half of these were due to iron deficiency anemia. Since serum ferritin is widely used to assess iron load, this study sought to determine the serum ferritin concentrations of anemic patients attending the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH), Nigeria. This was a prospective study carried out from March to September 2015. Blood samples of ninety-one anemic patients were analyzed for their individual packed cell volume (PCV) and serum ferritin concentrations using microhematocrit centrifuge and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (using Bio-QuantTM, San Diego, CA, USA) respectively. Findings from these analyses were correlated in respect to their age, gender and prior clinical diagnosis. Fifty-nine (64.8%) patients out of 91 had normal and 28 (30.8%) had high ferritin concentration, however, 4 (4.4%) had hypoferritinemia. The overall mean±standard deviation of PCV (L/L) was 0.21±0.46. There was statistical association between serum ferritin concentration and gender of adults but not with gender of children (≤12 years) (P=0.013 and P=0.555 respectively). There was no significant statistical association between serum ferritin concentration with age of subjects (P=0.250) and prior clinical diagnosis of subjects (P=0.125) Serum ferritin has been proven to be a logical measure of iron deficiency anemia; however, hypoferritinemia may also be affected by inflammation especially in subjects with chronic diseases. In order to gain better insight into iron metabolic activities, it is recommended to conduct serum transferrin and total iron binding capacity assays in these patients.