Anemia of Inflammation and Deficiency Anemia in Critically Ill Patients; Biological Markers

Critical patients which requiring admission to intensive care (IT) are a special group of patients. In these patients the prevalence of anemia reported in studies is 75%. This prevalence is similar to that in the retrospective observational study conducted in our intensive care unit(ICU). Of the 783 patients included in the study, 551 (73.37%) had anemia on admission. Frequently anemia is present on discharge from ICU or hospital and may persist for an average of 11 weeks. Some studies have reported the presence of anemia as far as 6 months after discharge. It is widely accepted that anemia has a negative impact on rehabilitation and quality of life, but the treatment can not be exclusively based on blood products due to the risks associated with transfusion. Alternative treatments such as injectable iron or erythropoietin should be considered.

The Transfusion Management Initiative Group recently issued recommendations on perioperative anemia. Similar recommendations for ICU have not yet been developed in Romania. The current study has two main purposes. The first to adopt the perioperative anemia diagnostic algorithm and adapt it to anemic patients on ICU; the second to identify patients with mixed anemia (inflammatory and iron deficient anemia) who can benefit from treatment with iron.