Do Gastrointestinal Symptoms Affect the Endoscopic Outcome in Anemic Premenopausal Women Due to Iron Deficiency: A Multicenter Study From Basrah-Iraq

Background and objectives: The most common cause for iron deficiency anemia (IDA) in women before menopause is menstrual blood loss. The persistence of digestive symptoms despite iron supplementation is the only indication for gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy in premenopausal women (PW) with IDA. We evaluated how the GI symptomatology manifestation affects the GI endoscopy diagnostic outcome in this cohort. Materials and methods: This is an observational, multicenter retrospective evaluation of 245 PW admitted for GI endoscopic diagnosis for the etiology of IDA from 2006 to 2016. Baseline measurements included hemoglobin, iron status tests, and red blood corpuscle morphological evaluation. We evaluated the relationships of different endoscopic findings to the severity of IDA, different demographic characteristics, and hospitalization duration. Results: The mean age was 40±7 years. The duration of hospitalization was neither associated with age nor the IDA severity. The IDA was mild to moderate. More than 53% (n=131) had either a negative study or nonspecific inflammatory changes. Around 16% (n=39) had GI malignancies. There was a significant association between initial GI symptoms with endoscopic GI finding and GI malignancy diagnosis in particular. The relationship loses its power during further assessment by general univariate analysis. Conclusion: A considerable percentage of anemic PW due to iron deficiency has an endoscopically-diagnosed pathology for IDA determined during GI endoscopy. The GI symptoms' phenotypes were unrelated to the endoscopically-diagnosed GI lesion location, even if they were malignant. Therefore, the determination of IDA severity must be thoroughly and individually determined.