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Home > Diagnosis & Monitoring > Anemia
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Anemia
Overview
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Anemia is defined as a decrease of hemoglobin in comparison to the normal values according to age and gender. It is always a symptom of an underlying condition or of malnutritition. Anemia itself is never a complete diagnosis.
Anemia is most often recognized by abnormal laboratory screening tests. Patients only occasionally present with advanced anemia and its accompanying signs and symptoms. Thus it is difficult to accurately determine the true frequency of anemia.
The most frequent cause of anemia is iron deficiency. Low dietary intake of bioavailable iron is an important factor in the development of iron deficiency. Loss of iron due to menstruation, pregnancy and lactation is a main cause for the outstanding prevalence of iron deficiency of women ages 12 - 49 years. Risk groups are also vegetarians and infants.
In the physician's office it is essential to detect patients with anemia early on and to identify patients at risk for nutritional deficiency or occult bleeding. Decreased levels of hemoglobin indicate anemia, therefore the hemoglobin value as a screening value is useful for diagnosis, assessment of disease and response to treatment of anemia.
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