Abstract

Before blood donation, blood banks screen potential donors for low hemoglobin or hematocrit, usually in blood drops obtained through finger prick. Although different technologies exist for this, including a couple of non-invasive systems, all detect anemia and prevent that anemic people give blood. However, a reasonable number of people bear sideropenia without anemia, and should not donate blood either. Nowadays, they do. To understand this issue better, to identify these invisible unfit blood donors, and to design costeffective ways to detect and protect them, we evaluated erythrocyte zinc protoporphyrin and serum ferritin in a cohort of 315 blood donors. In addition, we evaluated the number of blood donors bearing iron overload, invisible as well among donors, and discuss the importance of the extension of blood banks as epidemiological surveillance centers for iron metabolism disorders.

Keywords

iron deficiency, iron overload, blood donors, zinc protoporphyrin, ferritin