Assessment of iron status in regular blood donors in a tertiary care hospital in Southern India

BACKGROUND: Regular blood donation depletes iron stores. The assertion is that the vulnerable donor population requires a predictive standard operative procedure for early detection of iron store depletion, preventing them from developing iron-deficiency anemia. AIM: This study aims to study the potential effects of blood donation in the regular donor group using hematological and biochemical estimation of iron status parameters. STUDY SETTINGS AND DESIGN: This was a prospective cross-sectional study on regular blood donors, defined as those who have donated at least 3 times, the last donation being within the last 12 months and continues to donate at least once a year, at a tertiary care teaching hospital in Southern India. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The complete blood count (CBC) was performed on the Sysmex coulter, and the red cell indices were calculated. The ferritin and the soluble transferrin receptor (sTfR) assays were performed using Enzyme Immunoassays. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: The comparison of CBC, serum ferritin, and sTfR assay with donation frequency and time since the last donation was carried out using an independent student's t-test for two groups. The statistical analysis was performed using SPSS for Windows version 20. RESULTS: A total of 323 regular blood donors (6 were females) were included in the study of which they were categorized into three, 211 donors with less than or equal to 10 donations, 84 those who had donated between 11 and 20 times and 28 who had donated more than 20 times. The red cell indices were reduced and different in the groups but not statistically significant except for mean corpuscular volume. About 15% of the study population had a transferrin level of <15 ng/ml. The Ferritin levels showed a statistically significant negative correlation with the number of donations, the correlation coefficient being –0.27. Logarithmic ratios of sTfR/ferritin also correlated with a coefficient of 0.156 with the number of donations and were statistically significant. CONCLUSION: Our study found that regular blood donors had low iron stores, as shown by ferritin levels and other iron indicators. Using the current guidelines (hemoglobin >12.5 g/dL) for donation, or the red cell indices alone do not reflect the donor's actual iron status.