Serum ferritin concentration in patients receiving maintenance hemodialysis.

Studies in 144 patients on maintenace hemodialysis have shown that serum ferritin concentration is influenced by the period the patient has been on dialysis, the presence of liver disease and to some extent the underlying diagnosis. It was observed that parenteral iron therapy could still produce an increase in hemoglobin concentration when the serum ferritin was as high as 60--55 micrograms/l. This suggests that the target serum ferritin, whatever the route of iron replacement, should be at least 55 micrograms/l. The higher levels of ferritin at which an increase in hemoglobin concentration can occur, together with the variable increment in serum ferritin after parenteral iron, indicates that the simple relationship between serum ferritin and marrow iron stores may be distrubed in some patients.