Anaemia in patients with arthritis: are simple investigations helpful?

The level of haemoglobin, serum iron, total iron binding capacity and ferritin were measured in patients with rheumatological conditions who were anaemic at the time of upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. These parameters were similar in patients with or without lesions of their upper gastrointestinal tract, and in patients with a positive or negative faecal occult blood result. Lesions of the upper gastrointestinal tract were not more frequent in patients with a microcytic anaemia when compared to those with a normocytic anaemia, nor were they found more frequently in patients with a positive faecal occult blood test. Lesions visible at upper gastrointestinal endoscopy are not an important cause of microcytic anaemia in patients with arthritis. The finding that patients with normocytic anaemia are more likely to proceed to lower bowel examination than patients with microcytic anaemia is a reflection of the difficulty in interpretation of these simple haematological tests and showed they were unhelpful in determining which patients warrant investigation of the lower bowel. The frequency of further investigation of the lower bowel was significantly reduced by a positive endoscopy report, irrespective of the nature of the lesion, but was not significantly increased by finding faecal occult blood. We suggest that patients with arthritis selected for investigation of possible gastrointestinal blood loss should follow an organized plan of investigation that includes examination of both upper and lower bowel, and which should proceed uninfluenced by pro tem results. Unfortunately the selection of patients for such further investigation is hampered by a lack of simple discriminatory tests.