Effect of iron therapy on the whole blood platelet aggregation in infants with iron deficiency anemia.

This study was performed to investigate the platelet aggregation alterations in whole blood samples of infants with iron deficiency anemia. Platelet aggregation induced by various concentrations of adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and collagen was studied with impedance aggregometry in 25 patients before and after oral iron therapy and in 12 children of the control group. The posttreatment mean maximum aggregation values were significantly higher (p<0.01) and the posttreatment mean aggregation times were significantly lower (p<0.01) in the study group at all concentrations of ADP and collagen. The aggregation time and maximum aggregation values revealed no significant difference except for the maximum aggregation value at 5 microM ADP (p<0.05) between the study group after therapy and the control group. The differences between the pretreatment and posttreatment mean platelet counts and mean platelet volume values in the study group were statistically significant (p<0.01), whereas those values in the study group after therapy and in the control group were not significantly different. We conclude that iron deficiency anemia in infants, even without clinically meaningful platelet abnormality, may cause dysfunction of the ex vivo whole blood platelet aggregation, and can be reversed by iron therapy. Further studies should be carried out at the enzymatic level to determine whether this platelet aggregation dysfunction in iron deficiency anemia is due to a deficiency in the activation of iron-containing enzymes.