[Anemia in infancy: etiology and prevalence].

OBJECTIVE To verify the prevalence of anemia, iron deficiency anemia and iron deficiency in infants, at a Public Health Unit in the city of Goiânia-Brazil; to analyze and to correlate the hematologic and biochemical variables. METHODS A cross-sectional study was carried out. One hundred and ten full-term infants of the 120 mothers interviewed were included. The infants aged between six and twelve months and there were not twins. Socioeconomic and hematologic data was obtained. Venous blood was taken from fasting infants in order to carry out a complete hemogram through electronic cell counting, serum iron, serum ferritin and C-reactive protein, which were used in the evaluation of the etiology of iron deficiency in the anemic infants. Children with hemoglobin <11 g/dL were considered anemic. RESULTS The prevalence of anemia was 60.9%. In the diagnosis of the iron deficiency etiology in infants without an inflammation process, when considering the alteration of hemoglobin plus two more indices among mean corpuscular volume (MCV) or mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH) or serum ferritin or serum iron, the prevalence of the iron deficiency was 87%. Nevertheless, when red cell distribution width (RDW) was included in the indices, the prevalence was 97.8%. In the non-anemic infants, considering ferritin and RDW, the prevalence of iron deficiency observed was 28%. The best correlation among hematologic and biochemical variables were between hemoglobin and hematocrit (r=0.946), and MCH with MCV (r=0.950). CONCLUSIONS The main etiology in infants was iron deficiency anemia and its prevalence varied according to different parameters and criteria.