Using Soluble Transferrin Receptor and Taking Inflammation into Account When Defining Serum Ferritin Cutoffs Improved the Diagnosis of Iron Deficiency in a Group of Canadian Preschool Inuit Children from Nunavik

Table 4

Prevalence of iron depletion, IDE, and IDA in preschool Inuit children while disregarding or accounting for the influence of inflammation on SF cutoffs.

Iron status		Prevalence (%)	95% CI
Iron depletion^†
SF < 15 µg/L regardless of CRP level	53	32.7	25.4, 40.0	<0.0001
SF < 15 or <50 µg/L w/o or w/ inflammation, respectively^‡	75	46.3	38.5, 54.0
IDE
SF < 15 µg/L regardless of CRP level	51	31.5	24.2, 38.7	<0.0001
SF < 15 or <50 µg/L w/o or w/ inflammation, respectively^‡	73	45.1	37.3, 52.8
IDA
SF < 15 µg/L regardless of CRP level	10	6.2	2.4, 9.9	0.083
SF < 15 or <50 µg/L w/o or w/ inflammation, respectively^‡	13	8.0	3.8, 12.2

IDE: iron deficient erythropoiesis; IDA: iron deficiency anemia; SF: serum ferritin; w/o: without, w/: with.
The McNemar test was used to compare differences in the prevalence of iron depletion, IDE, and IDA between the two methods in children with a complete set of traditional indicators of iron status ().
^†Without () or with concomitant IDE and, in some cases, IDA.
^‡SF cutoffs were adjusted for inflammation using the C-reactive protein (CRP): w/o inflammation: CRP < 5 mg/L; w/ inflammation: CRP ≥ 5 mg/L.
IDE and IDA as defined in Table 1.