HWA: Hypoferritinemia without anemia a hidden hematology disorder

INTRODUCTION: Anemia is a condition, in which the number of red blood cells (RBC) and the hemoglobin (Hb) is insufficient to meet the body's physiologic needs. Hypoferritinemia without anemia (HWA) could cause masked clinical manifestations as general weakness, easy fatigability, depressed mode, and hair loss but with normal complete blood count (CBC) parameters. HWA is deferent from iron deficiency anemia (IDA) because there is no reduction in the RBC, Hb, or any of the other parameters of the CBC. In HWA, the hypoferritinemia could be missed because serum ferritin not always requested by general practitioners. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective study conducted on 6993 patients of hypoferritinemia patients from our computerized database from 2010 to 2016. The parameters investigated to detect HWA disorder were serum ferritin, RBC, Hb, hematocrit, mean corpuscular volume, and mean corpuscular hemoglobin. RESULTS: HWA is found in 130 (0.018%) hypoferritinemia patients, in a ratio 1.7–1 females to male. CONCLUSION: HWA is a masked hematology disorder which needs new nomenclature to distinguish it from IDA because they are two deferent disorders although both of them have low serum ferritin. HWA is not a latent IDA because it could happen in patients whom will not get anemia as in polycythemia patients on recurrent veinesection treatement.