Abstract
Oral administration of iron to 14 cases of RA was proved effective in nine and non-effective in five patients. The differences between the effective and non-effective groups were found in Hb value before iron administration and in SCu after four weeks of iron therapy. No other differences could be shown in this report. From this result, iron effective group was proved to have a milder anemia than non-effective one.
Further study was performed with an intention to show the differences between the anemia of RA and iron deficiency anemia. Twenty-seven RA patients, having moderate anemia, were compared with twenty-three shopgirls of a department store, who showed as low Hb value as the RA group and good response to oral administration of iron. The differences between the RA group and the iron deficiency group were found statistically significant in Ht, MCV, MCHC, TIBC, SCu and serum albumin. But there were no significant differences in RCC, MCH and SFe.
The morphological difference in red blood cells was notable, i.e. the anemia of RA was microcytic, while iron deficiency anemia was hypochromic. This morphological difference was thought due to lacking substances. The Hb of RA group showed a remarkable correlation to serum albumin, while MCHC in iron deficiency anemia correlated to SFe.
The analysis by the discriminant function showed that Ht played an important role to differentiate the anemia of RA from iron deficiency anemia.
