Prevalence of Functional Iron Deficiency (FID) Anemia in Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis

Aims: Anemia is one of the main problems in hemodialysis patients, which is caused by inadequate production of erythropoietin. Functional iron deficiency (FID) anemia is a kind of anemia, which lack of functional iron therein leads to resistance and inappropriate response to erythropoietin in hemodialysis patients. Since early diagnosis of this anemia before erythropoietin usage is important, this study was conducted “to determine prevalence of functional iron deficiency in hemodialysis patients”. Methods: In a cross–sectional design studied 184 patients with chronic kidney disease referred to hemodialysis units in Baqiyatallah and Chamran hospitals in Tehran. In order to data collecting were measured serum Hb, Hct and Ferritin levels plus to completing the demographic questionnaire. The χ 2 -test, T-test and ANOVA were used in this study. The data were analyzed via the SPSS18 software (version). The p value of 0.05 was considered as significance level. Results: The mean of serum levels of Hb and Hct was respectively 10.98±1.7 g/dl and 34.1±5.2%. Anemia was observed in 37%, hyperferritinemia in 80.4% and functional iron deficiency anemia in 41.1% of patients. Conclusions: Functional iron deficiency was observed in about half of hemodialysis patients and could cause resistance and inappropriate response to Erythropoetin in them. Therefore nurse awareness and his/her duly action in determining the status of iron stores prior to the administration of erythropoietin prevents from prescribing an expensive drug and imposing unnecessary costs to the patient and the health care system. Please cite this paper as: Biniaz V, Tayebi A, Sadeghi Shermeh M, Ebadi A, Nemati E. Prevalence of Functional Iron Deficiency (FID) Anemia in Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis. Iran J Crit Care Nurs. 2014;7(1):59-66.