Resumo

BARON, María Adela; SOLANO, Liseti; SANCHEZ JAEGER, Armando  e  VELASQUEZ, Emma. Subclinical iron deficiency in children under four years of age, Valencia city, Venezuela. Acta bioquím. clín. latinoam. [online]. 2014, vol.48, n.1. ISSN 0325-2957.

Iron deficiency is considered a public health problem, especially affecting children at ages of fast growth and psychomotor development. The study was aimed to identify subclinical iron deficiency in children below four years of age, through the use of serum ferritin (FS), soluble transferrin receptor (RsTf) and index RsTf-FS as diagnostic tools. It was a descriptive, transversal study performed at Valencia, Venezuela, 2006. Hemoglobin (Hb) by automated method, FS by IRMA, RsTf by ELISA, C Reactive Protein and alpha glycoprotein by nephelometry were assessed in 541 subjects. Descriptives values and Mann-Whitney and Fisher test results are presented. A p value <0.05 was considered significant. 72.1% of children had iron stores depletion, 25.5% had iron deficient erithropoyesis and prevalence of anemia was 27.0%. The index RsTf-FS allowed to identify a higher percentage of children with subclinical iron deficiency, which indicates that the index is better diagnostic indicator than FS or RsTf by separate. Index RsTf-FS could become a invaluable test in order to distinguish between iron body stores depletion and iron-deficient erythropoiesis, subclinical phases of iron deficiency. Nutritional intervention based on supplementation and education as fundamental tool to diminish anemia and iron deficiency prevalence should be initiated.

Palavras-chave : subclinical iron deficiency; ferritin; transferrin receptors; transferrin receptor-ferritin index.

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