The Comparison of Platelet Counts between the before and after Treatments of Women with Iron Deficiency Anemia

Objective: Iron deficiency is the most common etiological cause of anemia in premenopausal patients and characterized with hypochromic, microcytic erythrocytes. Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) has been reported to accompany the changes in both the count and the parameters of platelets (PLT). In our study, we evaluated possible PLT changes by complete blood count (CBC) and anemia tests conducted on women aged between 15 and 48 who were diagnosed with IDA before and after iron replacement treatment. Methods: Ninety-six patients with the diagnosis of IDA were included in our study. Iron (Fe), total iron-binding capacity (TIBC), ferritin, hemoglobin (HGB), hematokrit (HCT), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), red cell distribution volume (RDW) levels, and PLT counts of the patients before and after the treatment were compared. In this comparison, Wilcoxon test and for the relationship between the variables Pearson correlation analysis were used. A p value of <0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results: Ferritin, Fe, HGB, HCT, MCV, and MCH levels after the treatment were found to be significantly increased (p=0.0001) and UIBC, TIBC, RDW, and PLT were significantly decreased (p=0.0001) when compared with those before the treatment. A negative correlation between PLT and HCT, MCV, and MCH (r=0.216, 0.236, 0.366; p=0.035, 0.021, 0.0001, respectively) and a positive correlation between PLT and RDW (r=0.35 and p=0.0001) was observed. Conclusion: PLT counts of the patients after the treatment were found to be decreased. PLT counts that were increased but in the normal range could be because the hypochromic, microcytic erythrocytes were probably counted as PLT on automated blood count analyzers and/or because of increased erythropoietin (EPO) in IDA.