Discriminating Between Iron Deficiency Anemia and Anemia of Chronic Disease Using Traditional Indices of Iron Status vs Transferrin Receptor Concentration

We compared the ability of soluble serum transferrin receptor (TfR) concentration, quantified using the R&D Systems (Minneapolis, MN) enzyme-linked immunosorbent TfR assay, with other, more traditional indicators of iron status (total iron binding capacity [TIBC], mean corpuscular volume [MCV], percent transferrin saturation [%TS], RBC distribution width [RDW], and serum iron concentration [SIC]) for discriminating between patients with iron deficiency anemia (IDA) or anemia of chronic disease (ACD). The TfR concentration was determined in 72 serum samples selected from men and nonpregnant women classified biochemically on the basis of ferritin concentration as having IDA (n = 41) or ACD (n = 31). By using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, the diagnostic accuracy of the various indicators of iron status that we evaluated for discriminating between IDA and ACD decreased in the following order: TIBC > TfR > MCV > (%TS = RDW) > SIC. There was no significant difference between the diagnostic accuracy of TIBC and TfR. Thus, the routine measurement of TfR offers no advantage over TIBC for discriminating between people with biochemically defined IDA or ACD.