P09 | Prevalence and correlates of anemia in patients admitted to a General Medicine unit

Premises and purpose of the study: Anemia is frequently overlooked in patients admitted to hospital. Our study aimed to investigate the prevalence and correlates of anemia on admission to a General Medicine unit. Materials and Methods: Consecutive patients admitted to our department were studied. The following definitions were applied: anemia (WHO): Hb <13 g/dL in males, <12 g/dL in females; iron deficiency: absolute (AID)=ferritin <30 ng/mL; functional (FDI): ferritin <100 ng/mL or ferritin=100 – 299 ng/mL and transferrin saturation <20%. Insufficient (I) and deficient (D) vitamin blood levels: VitB12 <300 and <200 pg/mL, folate <5.38 and <3.39 ng/mL respectively. eGFR was calculated with CKD-EPI equation. All analyses were performed with IBM SPSS software.Results: 707 patients (M: 320 (45.3%), F: 387 (54.7%) were studied. Mean age was 78.02±13.49 yrs, mean BMI 25.11±5.13. 52.8% of patients were treated with PPIs, and 11.7% with metformin. Anemia was detected in 67.8% of patients, and was more common in males (75% vs. 61.8%) and in patients >65 yrs. (70.9% vs. 48.5%). FID and AID were diagnosed in 47.8% and 10.5% of cases respectively. Insufficient and deficient blood levels were detected in 31.3% and 27.4% of patients for VitB12 and in 19.0% and 25.0% of patients for folates. In multivariate analysis, anemia was significantly associated with male sex, AID, and PPI assumption, but not with eGFR, BMI, metformin assumption or low vitamin levels.Conclusions: Our study confirms the high prevalence of anemia and iron deficiency in general medicine patients.