Correlations of Extended Hematological Parameters with Iron Status in Healthy Adolescents: Cross-sectional study

Introduction: Iron status (ferritin and transferrin saturation TSAT) routinely performed to detect iron deficiency. However, these parameters required complicated procedures, expensive costs and took a long time. The hematological parameters including Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV), Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin (MCH), Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin Concentration (MCHC), and red cell distribution width (RDW), hypochromic erythrocyte percentage (%Hypo), microcytic erythrocyte percentage (%Micro), and reticulocyte cellular hemoglobin content (CHr) which integrated in a single analyzer were considered as potential iron status parameters. This study aimed to examined the correlation of hematological parameters (MCV, MCH, MCHC, CHr, %Hypo, and %Micro) with iron status. Methods: Participants were medical students of Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and were selected consecutively. The MCV, MCH, MCHC, RDW, %Hypo, %Micro, and CHr examinations measured with Advia 2120 automatic hematology analyzer, while the iron status results used a Cobas® chemistry analyzer. Correlation analysis was calculated by Spearman correlation tests. Results: There were 80 participants consisting of 10 men (12.5%) and 70 women (87.5%) with an age range of 18-24 years. The correlation of hematological parameters with the examined iron status was statistically significant (p<0.001). Correlation coefficients of ferritin with MCV, MCH, MCHC, CHr, %Hypo, and %Micro were 0.275, 0.337, 0, 381, -0.573, 0.407, -0.628, and -0.362, while TSAT correlation coefficients were 0.327, 0.403, 0.506, -0.553, 0.426, -0.586, and -0.375, respectively. Conclusion: Conventional erythrocyte indices of MCV, MCH, and MCHC have a lower correlation than RDW and the extended erythrocyte indices (CHr, %Hypo, and %Micro). © 2024 Universiti Putra Malaysia Press. All rights reserved.