Anaemia, iron deficiency and iron deficiency anaemia among blood donors in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

Background: There is paucity of information on the effect of blood donation on iron stores in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The present study was, therefore, designed to assess, using a combination of haemoglobin and iron status parameters, the development of anaemia and prevalence of iron deficiency anaemia in this area of Nigeria.

Materials And Methods: Three hundred and forty-eight unselected consecutive whole blood donors, comprising 96 regular donors, 156 relatives of patients and 96 voluntary donors, constituted the study population.

Reference percentiles of hematological and biochemical iron values of blood donors in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

In a setting where there is no functional blood transfusion service, there is a need to establish reference values which will assist in determining the cut-off values of the donor pool and also to evaluate anemia. Three hundred and forty eight blood donors of both sexes, aged 18 to 62 years were studied in a cross-sectional descriptive study. Four biochemical parameters: serum ferritin (SF), serum iron (SI), total iron binding capacity (TIBC) and transferrin saturation (TS) and four hematological parameters: hemoglobin (Hb), packed cell volume (PCV), total white blood cell count (WBC) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), were assessed.