The Detection of Iron Overload

Abstract

Human physiology is such that few people accumulate excess iron. Indeed, normal persons are able to control the accumulation of body iron despite ingestion of up to 5 to 10 times the normal amount.¹ There are, however, two disorders in which large amounts of iron accumulate in the parenchymal cells. One category of parenchymal iron overload includes patients with extremely high rates of erythropoiesis — i.e., those with thalassemia and sideroblastic anemia, in which the hyperplastic erythroid marrow in some way directs the intestinal mucosa to take in excessive amounts of iron.² A second category is the homozygous HLA-related disorder . . .