Mild cobalamin deficiency in older Dutch subjects

Mild transcobalamin I (haptocorrin) deficiency and low serum cobalamin concentrations.

BACKGROUND Low cobalamin concentrations are common, but their causes are often unknown. Transcobalamin I/haptocorrin (TC I/HC) deficiency, viewed as a rare cause, has not been examined systematically in patients with unexplained low serum cobalamin. METHODS Total TC I/HC was measured by RIA in three subgroups of 367, 160, and 38 patients with different categories of low cobalamin concentratio...

Diagnosis of cobalamin deficiency.

Cobalamin deficiency, hyperhomocysteinemia, and dementia

INTRODUCTION Although consensus guidelines recommend checking serum B12 in patients with dementia, clinicians are often faced with various questions: (1) Which patients should be tested? (2) What test should be ordered? (3) How are inferences made from such testing? (4) In addition to serum B12, should other tests be ordered? (5) Is B12 deficiency compatible with dementia of the Alzheimer's typ...

Helicobacter pylori and cobalamin deficiency.

We have read with interest Maktouf et al.’s letter about the etiological role of deficiencies of cobalamin or folate in megaloblastic anemia. In this large prospective series, they investigated 478 patients with megaloblastic changes in bone marrow smears and reported the demographic, biological and clinical findings in cobalamin-deficient patients and patients with pernicious anemia. Out of 43...

Effective treatment of cobalamin deficiency with oral cobalamin.

Because cobalamin deficiency is routinely treated with parenteral cobalamin, we investigated the efficacy of oral therapy. We randomly assigned 38 newly diagnosed cobalamin deficient patients to receive cyanocobalamin as either 1 mg intramuscularly on days 1, 3, 7, 10, 14, 21, 30, 60, and 90 or 2 mg orally on a daily basis for 120 days. Therapeutic effectiveness was evaluated by measuring hemat...