Limitations of Serum Ferritin in Diagnosing Iron Deficiency in Inflammatory Conditions

Table 2

Proposed serum ferritin and TSAT thresholds for the diagnosis of iron deficiency in patients with or without inflammatory conditions.

Population	Thresholds
No inflammatory condition [43]	Serum ferritin < 30 μg/L (N.B.: false negatives are common)
Inflammatory conditions [4, 5]	Serum ferritin < 100 μg/L or TSAT < 20%; If serum ferritin is 100–300 μg/L, a TSAT test is required to confirm iron deficiency

TSAT, transferrin saturation.