Re-Examining Ferritin-Bound Iron: Current And Developing Clinical Tools

Iron is a highly important metal ion cofactor within the human body, necessary for haemoglobin synthesis, and required by a wide range of enzymes for essential metabolic processes. Iron deficiency and overload both pose significant health concerns and are relatively commonworldwide health hazards. Effective measurement of total iron stores is a primary tool for both identifying abnormal iron levels and tracking changes in clinical settings. Population based data is also essential for tracking nutritional trends. This review article provides an overview of the strengths and limitations associatedwith current techniques for diagnosing iron status, which sets a basis to discuss the potential of a new serummarker - ferritin-bound iron - and the improvement it could offer to iron assessment.