Anemia in a gastroenterological patient: ways to solve the problem

Background. Anemia is never the normal condition and often is associated with gastrointestinal pathology. For the practitioner, it is important to analyze not only the hemoglobin level, but also a number of erythrocyte indices. This will allow to correctly build a differential diagnostic search. Description of a series of clinical cases. Patient B., 53 years old. In order to reduce weight, he has dramatically changed the nature of his diet, incl. completely abandoned animal food. He lost 16 kg, began to notice weakness, decreased exercise tolerance, and increased dyspnea. A progressive decrease in blood hemoglobin level to 111 g/l, and then to 85 was noted. During the examination to clarify the cause of anemia, a colon tumor was detected. Patient T., 70 years old. During the last 2 years he decided to completely abandon animal products in order to “purify the body and normalize cholesterol level". The hemoglobin level decreased from 142 to 90 g/l against the background of a sharp drop in the ferritin level. Clinical and laboratory remission was achieved after two infusions of iron carboxymaltosate. Conclusion. Against the background of gastrointestinal pathology, anemia occurs quite often and has a heterogeneous nature. Timely recognition and correction of anemia can improve the patient’s quality of life. Iron deficiency anemia requires the obligatory replacement of not only functional iron in erythrocytes, but also replenishment of the depot, and ferritin level is a marker of iron depot. Iron carboxymaltosate allows to quickly solve these problems, easy to use, including in the settings of day inpatient facility and medical treatment room.

anemia, gastrointestinal diseases, iron preparations, iron carboxymaltosate