High Dose Intravenous Iron in Blood Donors With Iron Deficiency: a Randomized, Controlled Trial

Detailed Summary

2-3% of the population participates in blood donation programmes. Traditionally, safety issues in transfusion medicine have been concentrating on product and recipient safety. Extensive efforts including strict donor inclusion criteria and testing for important transmissible infections have substantially improved product quality. One of the most common risks of blood donation is iatrogenic iron deficiency. It may affect up to 30% of regular blood donors because each whole blood donation causes a loss of 200 to 250 mg of iron. Although this has been known for at least 50 years, iron deficiency is not routinely assessed or treated in this population. Contributing factors include donation frequency, lower weight and female gender. Women have lower iron reserves and in premenopausal women, the daily required amount of iron is higher than in men. Besides anemia, iron deficiency may lead to fatigue and impaired cognitive and physical performance. Oral iron substitution is often associated with significant gastrointestinal side effects leading to poor compliance. Today, intravenous (iv.) iron preparations are well tolerated and allow the application of a large dose of 1000mg in one visit. Our hypothesis is that in blood donors with iron deficiency intravenous iron is feasible and preferable to oral iron because of its high efficacy and optimal compliance with a similar safety profile that has been extensively studied in other populations than blood donors.

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