Clinical Significance of the New Beckman-Coulter Parameters in the Diagnosis of Iron Deficiency Anemia

Summary:Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) is the most common form of nutritional anemia worldwide. Despite the availability of various biochemical parameters for its diagnosis, their validity is still debatable. Therefore a simple, cheap and useful tool for diagnosis of IDA is under research. The aim of this study was to find the threshold values of the new Beckman-Coulter parameters in Turkish population, show their utility in the diagnosis of IDA and compare them with other conventional iron parameters. Materials and Methods: A total of 115 female patients with iron deficiency anemia (serum hemoglobin <120 g/L and serum ferritin <20ng/ml), 55 female patients with iron deficiency (serum hemoglobin >120 g/L and serum ferritin <20 ng/ml) and 165 female with healthy individuals were enrolled. Findings: Red blood cell size factor (RSf) and microcytic anemia factor (MAF) showed a significant positive correlation with hemoglobin, mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), mean cell hemoglobin concentration (MCHC), serum iron, transferrin saturation and a significant negative correlation with transferrin and total iron binding capacity. Low hemoglobin density (LHD) showed a significant negative correlation with hemoglobin, MCV, MCH, MCHC, serum iron, transferring saturation and a significant positive correlation with transferrin and total iron binding capacity. The receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis demonstrated 92.45 fl, 6.71% and 10.14 for RSf, LHD and MAF, respectively. Discussion: Our data demonstrated that these parameters are useful and can be confidentially used in the diagnosis of IDA.