MANAGE OF IRON DEFICIENCY AFTER BLOOD DONATION: A STUDY ON THE EFFICACY OF ORAL SUPPLEMENTATION WITH FERALGINE TM

In Italy, nearly 80% of donated blood comes from voluntary donors. Repeated blood donations without adequate iron replacement or an adequate wait between donations, results in iron deficiency (ID) in many donors, and low haemoglobin deferral (~7% of donation attempts) (Kiss and Vassallo, Br. J. Haemat.181:590, 2018). In an effort to better prevent ID, blood collection agencies are recommending various strategies, including testing of iron status and iron supplementation. The supplementation of iron, is however an expensive practice, and therefore impossible to apply to all the usual donors. For this reason it would be useful to find a parameter that can be used to identify a population of donors who are more likely to benefit from this treatment. Measurement of serum ferritin, an universally recognized method for assessing the possibility of a donor suffering from an iron deficiency, is carried out, in blood transfusion centers, only once a year (DM 2/11/2015, Italian Ministry of Health). In contrast, blood iron levels are measured at each donation. In this work we have measured serum iron levels in habitual donors to evaluate the changes of this parameter after subsequent blood donations.