Severe iron-deficiency anemia among hospitalized young children in an urban hospital.

The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and some characteristics of young children with severe iron-deficiency anemia hospitalized in an urban hospital. All of the young children (aged 7-24 months) hospitalized in a city hospital during the last 3 years were searched for iron-deficiency anemia and those with severe anemia were retrospectively evaluated. During this period, 3117 young children were hospitalized and 61.6% of them had a hemoglobin value of less than 11 g/dL and 52 children (2.7%) had severe iron-deficiency anemia (hemoglobin < 6 g/dL). It was concluded that iron-deficiency anemia is still an important health problem among young children in our society.