Abstract

BackgroundIron deficiency anemia (IDA) is a major health problem during pregnancy and it has adverse effects on the mother and the newborn. Red cell distribution width (RDW), which is a quantitative measure for red cell size variation (anisocytosis), is a predictor of IDA. Little is known regarding RDW and IDA during pregnancy.MethodsA cross sectional study was conducted at the antenatal clinic of Khartoum Hospital, Sudan, to determine the performance of RDW in the diagnosis of IDA using serum ferritin as a gold standard.ResultsAmong 194 pregnant women with a gestational period of 21.4 ± 6.5 weeks, 57 (29.4%) had IDA according to serum ferritin levels (<15 μg/l) and 61 (31.4%) had IDA according to RDW (>14.5). The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of RDW where serum ferritin was the gold standard were 43.8% (95% CI: 31.4–57.0%), 73.7% (95% CI: 65.8–80.5%), 41.0% (95% CI: 29.2–53.6%), and 76.0% (95% CI: 68.1–82.6%), respectively.ConclusionsIn this study, we found that RDW has a poor performance in diagnosing IDA among pregnant women compared with serum ferritin as the gold standard.Virtual slidesThe virtual slides for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/1721072967826303

Highlights

  • Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) is a major health problem during pregnancy and it has adverse effects on the mother and the newborn

  • Anemia during pregnancy is associated with increased maternal morbidity and mortality, and contributes to 20% of the maternal mortality in Africa [2,3,4,5]

  • Anemia during pregnancy is a large health problem in Sudan, where pregnant women in different regions of Sudan are more susceptible to anemia, irrespective of their age or parity [9,10]

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Summary

Introduction

Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) is a major health problem during pregnancy and it has adverse effects on the mother and the newborn. It has been estimated that the highest proportions of individuals affected by anemia are in Africa, e.g. in neighboring Ethiopia, anemia is a major problem for both pregnant (62.7%) and non-pregnant (52.3%) women of child-bearing age [1]. Anemia during pregnancy is associated with increased maternal morbidity and mortality, and contributes to 20% of the maternal mortality in Africa [2,3,4,5]. Anemia during pregnancy is a large health problem in Sudan, where pregnant women in different regions of Sudan are more susceptible to anemia, irrespective of their age or parity [9,10]. Anemia is associated with poor maternal and perinatal outcomes, such as maternal and perinatal mortality [10,11,12]

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