July 1, 2007

Role of Oral Iron in the Management of Long-Term Hemodialysis Patients.

Lenga I, Lok C, Marticorena R, Hunter J, Dacouris N, Goldstein M.   Clin J Am Soc Nephrol.   2007 Jul;2(4):688-93

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Hemodialysis
  • Ilan Lenga

    Thank you for your questions:

    1) We do not formally recommend any specific form of oral iron therapy, however in our experience Ferrous Fumarate seems to be the best tolerated, and contains one of the highest amounts of elemental iron per capsule. In practice, if a patient does not tolerate Ferrous Fumarate, despite all attempts to manage side-effects, we would try other formulations (such as Ferrous Gluconate) before determining that they are “iron intolerant”.

    2) Not really. The narrowing of the Hemoglobin target as a result of the CHOIR and CREATE trials, will likely lead to closer follow-up and adjustment of Erythropoeitin dosing. The ability to reach this target, will still depend on having adequate iron stores. Our message is that this target can be as practically achieved with using oral iron supplementation as with IV iron.

  • Guest

    Dear Dr. Lenga

    Do you recommend any particular form of oral iron? Also, now with more strigent hgb targets (ie 110-120 g/L), do you think that will influence the use and form of iron therapy?