Anemia caused by chronic disease

Chronic disease often causes anemia, especially in geriatric patients. Circumstances such as infection, inflammation and cancer, suppress the formation of red blood cells in bone marrow.

Because iron stores in the bone can not be used by new red blood cells, it is often called anemia re-use iron.

Cause

In all patients, infections (even a mild infection) and inflammation (eg arthritis and tendinitis) inhibits the formation of red blood cells in bone marrow, so the number of red blood cells decreases. But the new situation will lead to anemia if it is severe or lasts for a long time (chronic).

Symptoms

Because this type of anemia develops slowly and is usually mild, anemia is usually not cause symptoms. If symptoms develop, usually the result of disease, not because anemia.

Diagnosis

Laboratory tests can determine that the cause of anemia is a chronic disease, but this could not confirm the diagnosis. Since it was first done is to eliminate other causes of anemia, such as heavy bleeding or iron deficiency.

The more severe the disease, the more severe anemia that occurs, but rarely anemia due to chronic diseases that become very severe :

• Hematocrit (precentage of red blood cells in the blood) are rarely up to under 25% (45%-52% in normal men, normal women 37%-48%)
• Hemoglobin (the amount of oxygen-carrying protein in red blood cells) are rarely up to below 8g/dL (normal 13-18 g/dL).

Treatment

There is no specific treatment for this type of anemia, so treatment is aimed to cause chronic disease.

Consuming iron supplements do not help much.

If the anemia becomes severe, it may take a transfusion or erythropoietin (a hormone that stimulates red blood cell formation in bone marrow).

Posted in: Anemia