Studies of iron transport in portal and systemic circulation.

T HE STUDY of iron absorption in man is hampered by the fact that the amount of iron which is retained in the intestinal mucosa and in the liver during the absorptive process is not known. Technics using whole body counters and stool collections give little or no information about the internal distribution of absorbed iron, except by use of iron52 and the Anger positron camera.’ A technic which permits simultaneous sampling of portal and systemic venous blood would appear to be useful in the study of transport of iron across the intestinal mucosa and its passage through the liver. Using Bonnet’s technic,2 iron absorption was studied in six patients undergoing umbilical vein catheterization for diagnostic purposes. The preliminary results have been published.3 The data on iron absorption and utilization were compared with those obtained previously in a group of normal men and women.4’