Panacea Journal of Medical Sciences

---

Predictive value of complete hemogram in comparison to serum ferritin in the diagnosis of iron deficiency anaemia among paediatric population with congenital heart defect: A cross- sectional study

Full Text PDF Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

---

Original Article

Author Details : Rajib Das, Mahaprasad Pal, Achinta Mandal, Sumanta Laha*, Kaustav Nayek, Sayed Asarudeen

Volume : 13, Issue : 1, Year : 2023

Article Page : 67-71

https://10.18231/j.pjms.2023.015

Suggest article by email

---

Abstract

Objective: Iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) is often associated with congenital heart defect (CHD) in children, especially in developing world. Often it remains undiagnosed due to the unaffordability to do costly tests like serum ferritin. We have done this study to know whether simple test like complete hemogram is sufficient to diagnose IDA in a child with CHD.
Materials and Methods: This hospital based observational study was done for a period of one and half year in paediatric ward of a district medical college of eastern India in children up to the age of 12 years with echocardiography confirmed CHD. Blood sample were tested for serum ferritin, mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin and hemoglobin concentration (MCH,MCHC) and red cell distribution width (RDW) to diagnose IDA.
Results : We found IDA in 46 children out of total 100 CHD cases based on serum ferritin level. Out of 46 IDA children, 40 children (87%) had low MCV, 39 children(84.8%) had low MCH, 33 children (71.7%) had low MCHC, 41 children (89.1%) had high RDW and 37children(80.4%) having microcytic hypochromic picture. In logistic regression analysis we found RDW as the independent predictor of IDA.
Conclusion : IDA is fairly common among children with CHD. Simple blood tests of complete hemogram including MCV, MCH, MCHC and RDW can diagnose it effectively where RDW shows the most predictive value in our study. So in resource limited developing countries we may not depend on costly gold standard tests like serum ferritin to diagnose IDA.
 

Keywords: Children, Congenital heart disease, Iron deficiency anaemia

How to cite : Das R, Pal M, Mandal A, Laha S, Nayek K, Asarudeen S, Predictive value of complete hemogram in comparison to serum ferritin in the diagnosis of iron deficiency anaemia among paediatric population with congenital heart defect: A cross- sectional study. Panacea J Med Sci 2023;13(1):67-71

Copyright © 2023 by author(s) and Panacea J Med Sci. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (creativecommons.org)