Evaluation of Urinary Hepcidin as a Marker for the Early Diagnosis of Iron Deficiency Anemia in Children

Abstract

Background: Iron deficiency is an essential element, because nearly all living organism urine hepcidin levels could potentially be used in the determination of iron requirements and be an accurate indicator of physiological IDA. Aim: The present study aimed to evaluate the role of urinary hepcidin as an early diagnostic marker of iron deficiency anemia in children. Methods: This study included 45 children. Their age ranged from 6 to 16 years with hemoglobin levels ≤ 11.5 gm/dL and ferritin levels ≤ 20 ng/mL. The diagnostic performance of urinary hepcidin was estimated by analyzing the receiver operating characteristic curve. Diagnostic cut-off point with a high predictive value for iron deficiency was selected. Results: This study showed no statistically significant difference between the two studied groups regarding to demographic data. There were decrease in serum iron, ferritin, hemoglobin and Red blood cells (RBCs) indices in patient than the control group. There was non-significant decrease in urinary hepcidin in the study group compared to control group. The sensitivity and specificity of urinary hepcidin in diagnoses of iron deficiency anemia was 57.8 and 62.2 respectively with positive predictive value (63.3) in our study. There was positive correlation between urinary hepcidin and mean corpuscular volume (MCV), (r = 0.221), (p = 0.036), with the cut of value Conclusion: We concluded that the decrease of urinary level of hepcidin was non-significant in iron deficiency anemia compare to control group and needed further researches.