Siderosis, haemolysis or hepatonecrosis in increasing post-desferrioxamine sideruria in acute viral hepatitis?

Post-desferrioxamine (DF) sideruria is accepted as a significant diagnostic test in dis-siderotic states: the highly marked iron excretion, observed in primary haemochromatosis, bears witness to this as does the quite low sideruria seen in irondeficient conditions. Likewise, in acute viral hepatitis, an elevated urinary iron elimination following DF administration has been reported for more than 2 years (Schnack & Wewalka, 1964; Dobrilla et al., 1966). In thirty-eight hepatitis patients Scuro et al. (1966) found post-DF sideruria values significantly increased in respect to the controls (Table 1). Quite