1. Serum pro-hepcidin as an indicator of iron status in dialysis patients
- Author
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Hirotaka Komaba, Hideki Fujii, Yasuhiro Hamada, Daisuke Tsuchihashi, Motoko Tanaka, Masafumi Fukagawa, Takaya Abe, and Tomoko Nii-Kono
- Subjects
Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Anemia ,medicine.medical_treatment ,Iron ,Inflammation ,Gastroenterology ,Hepcidins ,Hepcidin ,Renal Dialysis ,hemic and lymphatic diseases ,Internal medicine ,medicine ,Humans ,Protein Precursors ,Dialysis ,biology ,business.industry ,Hematology ,Iron deficiency ,Iron Deficiencies ,Middle Aged ,medicine.disease ,Nephrology ,Erythropoietin ,Immunology ,biology.protein ,Female ,Hemodialysis ,medicine.symptom ,business ,Biomarkers ,medicine.drug ,Hormone ,Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides - Abstract
Hepcidin has recently been recognized as a hormone essential to the negative regulation of iron. Synthesis of hepcidin is increased by iron overload or inflammation, and decreased by iron deficiency, anemia and erythropoietin. Dialysis patients frequently suffer the effects of both hepcidin increasing and decreasing factors. In this study, we investigated, for the first time, pro-hepcidin in dialysis patients while minimizing or manipulating these factors. We measured the serum pro-hepcidin in 23 hemodialysis patients without inflammation (the HD group) and 10 age-matched healthy volunteers. Those patients in the HD group were assigned to an iron-deficiency group (the ID group) or a non-iron deficiency subgroup (non-ID group). The HD group was followed up for two months. Iron therapy was performed in the ID group during the follow-up period. At the end of this time we evaluated the influence of iron therapy. Pro-hepcidin was similar in the HD groups and the healthy controls (295.1 [241.9, 413.7] vs. 301.7 [280.5, 383.5] ng/mL; not significant) despite the presence of hepcidin-decreasing factors. Pro-hepcidin in the ID group was significantly lower than in the non-ID group (262.6 [233.1, 295.1] vs. 359.2 [282.3, 446.5] ng/mL; P
- Published
- 2008