Improvement of anemia with deferoxamine in hemodialysis patients with aluminum-induced bone disease.

As microcytic anemia is a feature of aluminium intoxication, we prospectively studied the hematologic effects of deferoxamine in 10 hemodialysis patients with aluminum-induced bone disease. Comparing the mean monthly results of a 4 month period before and during deferoxamine therapy, we observed an important decrease of the transfusion needs (alpha less than 0.025) and an increase of hematocrit (p less than 0.02), hemoglobin (p less than 0.02), MCV (p less than 0.02) and MCH (p less than 0.05); the number of red blood cells remained unchanged. Our results show that deferoxamine treatment of dialysis patients with aluminum bone disease can markedly improve their anemia, even in the absence of recent aggravation, microcytosis and hypochromia. They also suggest that aluminum could participate in the anemia of dialysis patients even if it is normocytic.