Study of Etiological Spectrum and Clinicohematological Profile of Nonnutritional Anemia in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Western India

Abstract

Background: Worldwide, anemia is a significant public health issue, particularly in developing nations like India. Although the nutritional deficiency is the most common etiology, the nonnutritional anemia (NNA) also constitutes a major proportion of anemias. There has been little work done on etiology of NNA is in Indian patients, hence the present study assesses the etiological spectrum and clinicohematological profile of patients with NNA. Methods: Between August 2019 and August 2021, we observed and cross-sectionally analyzed 100 NNA patients in a tertiary care medical college and hospital to determine their clinical and laboratory characteristics. Results: In our study, anemia of chronic disease (51%) was the most common type of NNA, followed by hemolytic anemia (15%). The most common presenting symptom was easy fatigue (72%). Common findings on general examination were pallor (92%) followed by pedal edema (14%) and icterus (13%), whereas, on systemic examination, splenomegaly (21%) was the most common finding. Normocytic normochromic anemia was the most common pattern on hematological examination (75%). Conclusion: Anemia of chronic disease is the most common etiology among NNA with fatigue as the most common symptom. Practitioners should consider non nutritional etiology in a case of chronic anemia and a comprehensive clinical, hematological and biochemical study helps in the identification of underlying cause and treatment of NNA.

Keywords

• anemia of chronic disease
• etiology
• nonnutritional anemia