Title

Anemia of chronic disease: Evaluating iron markers and bone marrow findings

Authors

Preeti Nigotia¹, Madhur Gupta², Abhishek Yadav^3,* & Lakshya Pruthi⁴

Affiliation

¹Department of General Medicine, SRVS Medical College Shivpuri, Madhya Pradesh, India; ²Department of Biochemistry, N.K.P. Salve Institute of Medical Sciences & Research Centre and Lata Mangeshkar Hospital, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India; ³Department of Community Medicine, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical College, Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, India; ⁴Department of Internal Medicine, David Tvildiani Medical University, Georgia; *Corresponding author  

Email

Preeti Nigotia - E-mail: preeti9560@gmail.com

Madhur Gupta - E-mail: madhurgupta1972@gmail.com

Abhishek Yadav - E-mail: sanidhyarockon@gmail.com

Lakshya Pruthi - E-mail: lakshyapruthi3@gmail.com

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received June 1, 2026; Revised June 30, 2026; Accepted June 30, 2026, Published June 30, 2026

Abstract

Anemia of chronic disease (ACD) is a common condition associated with chronic inflammation, characterized by disordered iron metabolism and impaired erythropoiesis. This study evaluated iron metabolism markers and correlated them with bone marrow iron stores in 100 patients with anemia in chronic disease settings. Parameters including serum iron, ferritin, total iron-binding capacity (TIBC), transferrin saturation (TSAT) and soluble transferrin receptor (sTfR) were analyzed alongside bone marrow iron grading using Perls’ Prussian blue staining. Most patients demonstrated low serum iron and TSAT with normal to elevated ferritin levels, while increased sTfR in some cases suggested coexisting iron deficiency. Data shows that integrating serum ferritin and sTfR with bone marrow iron grading provides a more reliable framework for distinguishing anemia of chronic disease from coexisting iron deficiency, supporting a dual biochemical–morphological approach over single-marker evaluation in routine clinical practice.

Keywords

Anemia of chronic disease (ACD), iron metabolism, ferritin, soluble transferrin receptor (sTfR), bone marrow iron, hepcidin

Citation

Nigotia et al. Bioinformation 22(6): 3576-3580 (2026)

Edited by

Ritik Kashwani

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.